The Rogue Symbiote
by David Knight
Summary: A traumatic injury reveals a secret of Rogue's even she didn't know.
1. Volume 1 Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own the X-men, they belong to Marvel. This is a rewrite of the original chapter, as found there were glaring mistakes made in the story and I had to rewrite and alter events. I do hope that people do enjoy this story still though, perhaps even more, despite the changes._

_It takes place during X-Treme X-Men #16. For those that haven't read the X-Treme series I'll try to give summary overview on it as well as the characters you may not know about when reading this._

_The X-Treme X-Men were formed by Storm in order to find the Destiny Diaries, books written by Destiny herself which told of the future. Vargas, a man claiming to be the next breed of human and not a mutant, was also after the diaries and killed Psylocke during the team's first outing. As the team continued on their mission, they met mutants Heather Cameron and her brother Davis (Heather possessing the power to manifest whatever abilities are needed to perform a rescue while Davis can teleport via a 'warp wave), whose father was a crime boss (though they had no idea of that) that was murdered by one of the X-men's enemies. After being saved by the X-men, they ended up joining Storm's team. Eventually, the X-treme X-Men became involved in a plot by an interdiamensional warlord called Khan, who wanted to invade earth, and decided that Gambit was the key to open up the gate that would allow his invasion to happen. Khan also had this minion of his impersonate Storm in order to try to sabotage the X-Men, who went into his ship to stop him, save for Rogue who was still on earth trying to save lives in Madripoor and save Gambit from his fate. Vargas however was also in Madripoor, hunting Rogue down because in the final Destiny Diary, it was told that Rogue would be the one to kill Vargas, and thus he sought to defeat fate. As he tracked Rogue down, he came across the fake Storm and slew her. Then he found Rogue and Gambit, who were unable to move at all due to Rogue being distracted with attempting to rescue Gambit. Taking the opportunity, he ran his sword through the both of them._

_And that is where our story begins..._

**The Rogue Symbiote  
By: David Knight**

**Volume One: Discovery  
Chapter One: Awakening**

A man with dark black hair, dressed in black shirt and pants, wearing only a black trench coat looked down at his handiwork, a broad smile on his face. Finally, the vampiric _freak_ who would have dared to slay him was dead. Her and her wretched lover lay on the ground before him, his sword having gone right though their hearts.

"And thus, I beat destiny," the man known only as Vargas chuckled. So much for the so-called 'Destiny Diaries'…

He walked over to where Storm's body was and lifted it over his shoulder, smiling in satisfaction as he studied the limp form of the mutant who had once been the X-Men's field commander. He had two trophies now- and some of the most attractive ones he'd ever possessed, he had to admit- but had no way to carry them at the same time.

"Don't worry," he added, almost as an afterthought, as he glanced back at the two corpses still lying there, a broad grin on his face. "I'll be back for your corpse and my sword once I fetch my servants."

Without another word, he left the crypt, leaving the two bodies lying as they were. After all, they were, as he thought, dead; what harm could they do to him now?

Had he stayed for just another minute, he might have seen something that would have made him change his mind about that…

For even as the large form of Vargas departed the tomb, something was taking place that nobody could have predicted.

From the hole made by Vargas's sword, a strange substance came out from Rogue's back; it might have been taken for thick blood at a casual glance, but closer inspection revealed that it was a thicker, greenish-yellow substance that seemed to almost spread along Rogue's body as she lay there. Slowly but surely, it grew larger, beginning to cover her entire body, spreading over her tattered uniform and leaving only itself in its place.

As it reached her head, although still unconscious, Rogue's lips briefly curved into a soft smile, like someone waking up from a pleasant dream, before it was covered by the ooze.

* * *

Remy LeBeau had thought himself close to death.

He felt so much pain after being strapped down to this alter, being made to open that damn portal for Khan and his people to come through and invade the Earth…

Well, he couldn't let that happen at all now, could he? He may have helped Sinister to kill some of the Morlocks back in the day, but even at his worst, he would never have been party to something like… like _that_.

Despite the pain that seemed to consume his entire body, he managed to use what power he had to send a charged piece of rock out, intending to bring the house down on him. A suicidal attack, of course, but, if it destroyed the portal, he could 'live' with that, he supposed.

He couldn't even bring himself to smile at the bad pun that sentence invoked; it hurt too much.

But wouldn't you know it, his own cherè came in and protected him.

Stupidest move of her life, as far as he was concerned; touching, of course, but still stupid.

He was fine with dying, but not with _her_ dying…

And, as soon as that thought had finished crossing his mind, that's when he knew for a fact what kind of state he was in right now.

After all his missions with the X-Men, he was finally going to die.

What with that son of a bitch- also known as 'Vargas'- stabbing him like that…

_Damn_! Gambit winced, as he tried to move slightly and felt the metal fragment in his chest. He still felt the blade in his...

"GAHHHH!!!" he cried out as he felt the blade again, more intensely than it had been in the past…

Only this time, it was being pulled OUT of his body.

"Hush now Remy. Just… stay still," a voice whispered softly to him.

Even in the midst of his pain, Remy recognized the voice of an angel when he heard it.

After all, she was _his _angel.

"Cherè?" he gasped weakly, looking up to see her. He wasn't sure _how _she could still be alive after what Vargas had done to her- given how erratic her powers had been lately, he supposed it could have been Logan's healing factor kicking in at a convenient moment, but with the sword still _in _her like that…

Yet his eyes widened in disbelief at what he saw.

What he had _heard_ was Rogue's voice.

But the figure standing in front of him clearly _wasn't_ her.

It was a woman who looked even more shapely and endowed than his beloved cherè. The new arrival's entire body was a mix of green and yellow with some black highlights- the pain made it hard for his vision to focus enough on the fine details of the costume right now- and her hair was like the way he remembered his cherè the first time he saw her, slightly curly, but now it had come down to her back rather than the shoulder-length cut she favored these days- but all green with the white streak being yellow now.

Her eyes he couldn't say, only that they were large white patches…

Actually, in some ways, her 'eyes' now looked something like Spider-Man's mask if he thought of it; it had been a long time since he'd worked with the web-slinger during that 'Tombstone' crisis, but working with one of the world's most famous heroes was something that tended to stay in your mind, no matter how brief it was.

It was when she opened her mouth to reveal INCREDIBLY sharp teeth and a long tongue that he began to panic.

The wall-crawler's foes were normally not big enough to attract the X-Men's attention- they tended to focus on New York or the surrounding area, and thus stay out of the mutants' way- but right now, Gambit was reminded of the one foe from Spidey's enemy list who made it onto the FBI's Most Wanted with a regularity only surpassed by the likes of Doctor Doom or Magneto himself.

The brain-eating serial killer known to all as Venom.

"Don't worry Remy," the… person (Or whatever she was) said, holding Vargas's sword in her hands. "Vargas won't harm us again. I'll make certain of it."

She put her hand out and from it came a green gelatinous strand that went around his waist. Once again, Remy was reminded of Spider-Man; the substance looked like the web-slinger's webbing.

Of course, it did nothing to assuage his fears about the similarity between this thing and Venom; from what he'd read, _that_ sucker could duplicate Spidey's webbing as well.

"That should hold the blood back for when they get to you," the woman said, as she turned around to study the exit to their 'tomb', clearly intending to leave.

Remy wasn't about to allow that; weakened though he was, he could still try to find out what the _hell _had happened to his cherè.

"Who..." he rasped, trying to ignore the sharp pain in his side as he talked.

"Hmmm?" the woman asked.

"Who… are you?" Gambit demanded, making a desperate effort to ignore the pain he felt as he continued to speak. "Where's Rogue? What did… you do to… my cherè, you… monster?"

The woman looked at Gambit for a moment, looking almost hurt as she studied the former thief. Then the face parted- the mouth literally pulling back, teeth and all, over the head…

And Gambit saw, to his disbelief, Rogue's face.

Admittedly, it looked as though she was sleeping, but it was her.

Before he could say anything, his cherè's face was covered again, and the female Venom look-alike was looking at him with an almost compassionate appearance.

"I _am _your cherè, Remy," the woman said, looking at him as tenderly as a woman with teeth the size of most people's fingers could look.

Without any more words she took off flying, leaving Remy at a loss for words and disbelief.

"What..." he gasped, staring up at the ceiling, "what the hell… is going on..."

* * *

Storm's body slung casually over his shoulder, Vargas continued walking through the ruined streets of Madripoor, not really caring about the people who died around him in the aftermath of the attempted 'alien invasion'.

Glancing over, he saw a person trapped in a collapsing building, but he didn't bother to even try to help that person as the building collapsed and crushed them.

It simply would have delayed him.

"Why should I even _bother_ to help the weak?" he asked himself, glancing scornfully at the body he had slung over his shoulder, a smirk on his face. "Humans unlike me are like mutants; the failures of nature's great experiment to determine who is worthy to live."

Why anybody with powers and abilities far superior to the common flock used their talents to _help _those wastes of space he shuddered to think…

"And who made you god, Vargas?" a voice called out from behind him.

Vargas froze in disbelief at the voice he heard.

There was no way he could have heard that voice, for the simple reason that the speaker had been killed by his hand.

And yet, as he turned around, he saw someone that he knew was dead, having witnessed her die directly in front of him from his own actions, standing in the middle of the street as though she'd never been attacked by him in the first place.

Worse, not only did the woman have the nerve to look as though she was prepared to fight him again- regardless of the fact that he'd managed to kill her with relative ease the last time the two of them fought it out- but she also held his sword!

"Psylocke?" he said, staring incredulously at the female British telekinetic mutant standing before him.

The purple-haired mutant commonly known as Betsy Braddock simply smirked as she held Vargas's blade.

"Back from the dead, you bastard," she said, her eyes narrowing as she raised the sword in a combat stance. "And I'm here to take your life."

"I don't believe in resurrections," Vargas growled.

"Don't you know anything about the X-Men?" Psylocke asked, chuckling at his angry expression. "At least _half_ the team have been thought dead before now and come back against almost all the odds; why should I be an exception?"

Vargas growled low in his throat. He did recall hearing something about some of the X-Men surviving near-death experiences in the past- nothing definite, and he'd never seen the need to ask for further information given that he hadn't been dealing with any of the apparently resurrected mutants- but still, it _might _have been possible…

_Enough_! Vargas told himself, angry at his distraction; contemplating about whether or not some _idiots_ with no clue about how to use their powers properly might be capable of coming back from the dead wasn't the issue at the present moment.

_He _was the master in this fight; it was time he made sure that 'Psylocke'- or whoever she was- realized that.

"I see that you have my sword," he said, casually indicating the weapon with a slight grin on his face. "Tell me, what did you think of what I did to that Southern Whore and her thief lover?"

Psylocke's eyes narrowed as she stared at him, her fingers flexing over the sword she held in her hand…

Then, much to Vargas's surprise, she then tossed it back to him.

"Pick it up, you coward," she said, glaring coldly at him as she shifted her footing into a combat stance. "I'm going to make you bleed with my own _bare hands_. I'll tear out your THROAT with my own FINGERS if that's what it takes!"

"Well now," Vargas said with a smirk, putting down his trophy before picking up his sword, quickly shifting into a position where he could use the sword effectively, "that eager to die for real, are you?"

He chuckled once more as he stared at Psylocke, his earlier confidence once again restored at the feel of his familiar blade in his hands. "You really think you can beat me without a weapon?"

Psylocke simply smirked. "If you think you can cut me," she said, as nonchalantly as if she was just dealing with a common human. "Go ahead and try, you bastard."

Vargas took that as a challenge. Raising the sword, he charged at the woman, knowing he could take her down; after all, he'd already done it _once_. He brought his sword down towards her with a blow aimed directly at her stomach, already eagerly anticipating the rush of blood as his blade cut into her…

Instead, he was shocked as he saw her hand catch his sword with an open palm; the blade might as well have been made of soft rubber for all the impact he seemed to have made to her skin.

With a simple grunt, Psylocke broke the sword, leaving Vargas speechless as she looked at him, a wide grin on her face.

"My turn," she said simply. Without any warning, green-yellow spears suddenly shot out of her body- it vaguely reminded him of something he'd read about porcupines, back when he'd been little better than the rest of the flock- and launched themselves at Vargas, impaling him directly through his arms and legs.

Overcome by the shock and pain of the attack, Vargas was sent flying backward into a nearby wall. As soon as his short flight had stopped, he moved to get up, only to find the spears suddenly shifting to become some sort of wire. Before he could adapt to this new change, the wire had wrapped around his legs and arms, restraining him so tightly that not even his enhanced strength could break them. Looking up, he could only watch in slowly growing horror as Psylocke walked toward him smiling wide.

"What's wrong?" Psylocke laughed maliciously. "Don't tell me this is all the great hunter Vargas has to offer?" she added tauntingly. Before Vargas's increasingly horrified eyes, Psylocke's dark purple hair changed to emerald green and dramatically increased in volume.

More than that, like those old reports he'd heard about the 'Inhuman' Medusa… the hair seemed to be alive…

A fact that was confirmed when part of the hair stretched out and wrapped around Vargas's neck, the wires tightening around him as the tentacle lifted him up to a position where he was eye to eye with his opponent.

"Surely you could do better than this," 'Psylocke' added, grinning at him.

"You... you CAN'T be… Psylocke," Vargas gasped, staring in desperation at his foe. His adversary may look like Psylocke, but she had never possessed these kind of powers; she was a telekinetic, and nothing more.

"Gee? You just figuring that out now?" 'Psylocke' rolled her eyes, in exasperation. "And I thought you were meant to be _better _than humans…"

As Vargas watched, his horror changing to confusion, her form changed from the normal-looking form of Psylocke into what looked like a woman dressed in a full-body outfit of tight-fitting green-yellow.

At least, she looked human until she opened her mouth to reveal teeth that would have made a shark look like a vegetarian.

"Ya've killed many people," the creature that had once been Psylocke said, a long tongue 'flicking' briefly out of its mouth as it spoke. "But even more importantly… ya nearly killed my host."

_Host_? Vargas asked himself, the question momentarily overtaking his fear. _What does _that _mean_?

"An' let meh tell ya somethin'... " the woman said with malice. "That wasn't smart at all."

"What... are you?" Vargas gasped, fighting through the rapidly-increasing pain around his arms and legs as the 'wires' seemed to tighten.

"I?" the creature said, its accent changing to a more casual, less heavily-accented voice as it moved the hair tentacle holding him so that he was drawn even closer to the creature. A broad grin split its horrific face as its tongue flicked out to slightly 'lick' his cheek- leaving a thin, cold line of drool that made him flinch- before it spoke again.

"I have no name, Vargas," the woman continued, still speaking in the less accented voice that Vargas couldn't stop thinking was somewhat familiar. "But consider me... _your executioner!"_

As soon as she'd finished, the tentacle released Vargas, allowing him to fall to ground as he stared up at her in ever-growing fear, his arms and legs still bound.

"You've taken so many lives," the creature stated as it glared down at him, contempt evident in its very body language even if its face was a mystery. "So many people that didn't have to die. Even now you could have helped people in this city…"

"For what purpose?" Vargas snapped, finally gaining the confidence he needed to speak back against this nightmare. "They are weak! They don't NEED help! They simply die as nature intends them to! I am nature's chosen! I am the one that will lead..."

He was cut off by a rapid kick to the stomach that sent him into coughing fits.

"Blah Blah Blah!" the woman said, staring up at the sky in a bored manner as she shifted her fingers into small daggers while continuing to stare skeptically down at him. "Honestly! Do all villains have to say the same crap? It really pisses me off; if I'm going to nearly get killed by someone, couldn't they come up with some original dialogue, for crying out loud?!"

Despite the fear that was beginning to spread throughout his system, Vargas tried to glare up at her in his usual confident manner.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded; he may be tied up, but he was still _determined_ to act as though he was still in charge of the situation.

"Before I end your life…" she paused, grinning broadly at him, displaying the mouth of disturbingly sharp teeth, "I want you to see who my host is."

As Vargas watched in horror, her mouth seemed to draw back over her entire head, revealing the apparently sleeping face of…

"ROGUE---AGHHH!!!" Vargas gasped in shock, his words cut off as he felt himself being stabbed, accompanied by a vague blur where Rogue had stood, as though she had moved too fast for him to see.

Wait a minute…

There was no pain.

He looked down and saw something that seemed to answer that question at least; she hadn't stuck her hand into the front, but in the _back_.

_What…? _He thought briefly, confused by this recent turn of events. _But…_

Suddenly, with no apparent warning, he fell to the ground, unable to move his legs at all.

"I thought my host would hate me if I took your wretched life in the _actual_ sense- and trust me, right now I'd rather not risk making her mad," the being said as she looked back with a fanged smile that reminded Vargas once again of a shark. "So I did the next best thing. I took away your life as a warrior. I took your legs from you. You're a cripple now Vargas."

Vargas's eyes widened in horror.

"Kill... me..." he gasped, trying not to focus his mind on the growing numbness where his legs should have been registered by his senses. "Warriors should not have to live like this!"

"And the people you slaughtered?" the creature sneered at him. "Did they deserve it?"

Sniffing at him as though he was just something to wipe off her shoe, she turned away, glaring at him over her shoulder. "You were never a warrior Vargas… just a coward. Enjoy the rest of your life, knowing that you can no longer do any harm at all to anyone. Be thankful I didn't decide to take away your arms."

With that, she then walked away from him.

"Come back here! Come back!" Vargas yelled after her as she turned to look at where Storm's body still lay. "COME BACK AND KILL ME!!!"

"It's over Vargas," the creature said, as she paused over the fallen body of the X-Men's leader, bending down to scoop up the body of the lifeless mutant and giving him one final look.

"Deal with it," she said simply, her gaze practically radiating venom as she stared at him; indeed, for a moment, remembering how erratic this mutant's powers had apparently been lately, Vargas was almost afraid that he would be incinerated by the stolen eyebeams of that 'Cyclops' individual…

She then turned around and walked back the way she'd come

Finally, as it finally began to dawn on him that she was not going to come and end what she had begun… that he was indeed doomed to spend the rest of this life as a pathetic mockery of a man… with no hope of release or restoration of the prison his own body had become… he let out a scream of his own.

* * *

Back in the tomb, Gambit laid on his back, unable to move and cursing himself for his weakness, even as he tried not to dwell on the _other_ 'problem' facing him right now.

Specifically, the fact that he was dying.

He was fading in and out of consciousness, incapable of the focus required to stay awake, and there was no sign of anybody coming to help him; it was safe to say that he was definitely dying this time around.

Of course, the shock given to him by what he saw of his cherè didn't help much either.

_Then again…_ Gambit mused to himself, as he fought desperately to keep his eyes open as that thought occurred to him once again, _Maybe it's what I need…to fight to make sure I don't die... until I know what the hell_ _happened to her…_

"Rogue..." he gasped desperately, wishing that somebody was there to hear him. "Need… to help... her..."

"Gambit!" a voice yelled from off to the side, breaking through to him more effectively than any of his own thoughts cold have done.

_Sage_…. Gambit realized, smiling to himself in relief as he recognized his teammate's voice.

"Where's Rogue?" Sage said again, sounding closer this time. "Did she go after Vargas?"

"Sage... Rogue... not herself..." the Cajun muttered.

He could barely speak; every breath he took hurt the wound in his chest, and he felt like he was going to black out for good any minute…

But they had to know about Rogue.

"Rogue... not herself..." he gasped again, staring desperately up at the vague form of the woman standing over him, pain clouding his vision. "Venom. Looks like… Venom..."

That was all he could say before the darkness took him once more.

* * *

Sage frowned at Gambit's words as she waited for the medical teams to arrive. They had only just finished dealing with Viper, the Princess of Madripoor when she had made her presence known to 'help' them deal with the recent invasion.

Naturally, Viper had paid the price for her actions; the green-haired criminal got a bullet in the gut from Storm for nearly crippling her, and Sage herself had made sure that the criminal lord got the message never to cross the X-men again.

"How's he doing?" Bishop asked, looking anxiously at Gambit from where he stood off to the side.

"Not good… but you already assumed that much," Sage replied, before looking back at Bishop with an anxious expression. "He mentioned something about Rogue not being herself. About her looking like… well, _Venom_, apparently."

"Venom?" Bishop asked, his eyes widening in shock.

Of course, Sage could hardly blame him. None of the X-Men had ever had any personal encounters with Venom, but they'd fought alongside Spider-Man on many occasions- hell, during the Secret War he'd once managed to fight off six of their most prominent members single-handed- and knew that he was more than capable of handling himself in a fight.

For Venom to be able to actually overpower somebody like that…

It did not help Sage's mood to think that someone that powerful could be out there right now, and all they had to oppose him with were a bunch of wounded X-Men.

"What would make Gambit say that?" Bishop continued, staring in confusion at his wounded friend. He looked like he was about to say more, but then a yell from off to the side distracted them both.

"AH! What the hell is that?!" Davis Cameron shouted, pointing just up to a hill. He had been freaked out and repulsed by the golden monster that they were saying was his sister, which he couldn't believe, and had been looking in another direction from the rest of them.

Heather couldn't help but hate how her brother thought of her now, with her Shi'ar like attributes, but looking up along with the rest of the X-men, she had to be almost grateful for him looking away; if he hadn't, they might have missed the… well, thing coming down the hill right now.

Sage had no idea what it was, but it could definitely be described as a Venom-like monster, given the gleaming teeth she could see even from here…

And was that _Storm_ in her arms?

The woman looked over to where the REAL Storm currently 'stood' ('Stood' being a loose description, given that her severe injuries meant that she needed support from Neal Shaara/Thunderbird just to stay upright).

"Storm?" the creature (Now close enough for Sage to see that it seemed to a woman with ridiculously large teeth apparently dressed in a skin-tight green-yellow material that she couldn't identify) said, in an accent that Sage found shocking familiar. "If that's you, then who is it that Vargas killed that Ah'm holding in mah arms?"

"R… Rogue?" Storm gasped, looking up in shock at the sound of her old ally's voice coming from this figure.

"Not… exactly," the woman replied, sounding almost hesitant as she looked at the assorted X-Men around her. Sage noted with surprise that the creature's voice had actually changed between this sentence and the previous one; where before the creature had sounded like Rogue, it now sounded more like the average American woman, lacking Rogue's distinctive accent. "Rogue is… well, she's my host, and right now she's sleeping- healing, to be precise; getting stabbing by that Vargas guy took a lot out of us- as I run the show. You can call me… well, actually, I'm not sure _what _you can call me, to be honest; I'm still working on what I should name myself now."

The word 'host', along with what Gambit had said about Venom (Which was definitely as apt a comparison as any, given the sharp teeth and what Sage could see of the woman's tongue) put all of the pieces together for Sage as she narrowed her eyes.

Much as she hated the thought of having to go up against one of these in their current state, she knew exactly what they were dealing with.

A symbiote.

**To Be Continued...**


	2. Volume 1 Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own the X-men, they belong to Marvel. This is a rewrite of the original chapter, as found there were glaring mistakes made in the story and I had to rewrite and alter events. I do hope that people do enjoy this story still though, perhaps even more, despite the changes. I'd like to thank my friend Marcus for his help with this story, as he has been a godsend with betaing. I hope you enjoy this story._

**The Rogue Symbiote  
By David Knight**

**Volume One: Discovery  
Chapter Two: How We Came to Be**

The Symboite-possessed Rogue looked on at the gathered X-Men with what appeared to be a confused look on her face as she saw how everyone was on edge.

"What?" she asked casually, wondering what their problem. "Is there something wrong here?"

"'Is there something wrong?'!" Davis snapped, staring incredulously at the symbiote before him. "You've taken over our _friend_, you monster!"

"_What did you say!!!" _the symbiote screeched, throwing its head back, mouth wide open and tongue lashing out, she glared at Davis. "I am _not_ a monster!"

"Shut up! Why don't you just go and die!" Davis snarled. "A freak like you..."

"Davis shut up!" Bishop snapped, angered at the man's reaction to this. Bad enough he viewed his own sister, who now looked more Shi'ar than human, and now with Rogue and this symbiote ...

_How far is xenophobia from mutant hating?_ he asked himself. He was glad that he didn't have to deal with Slipstream's apparent dislike of anything that didn't look entirely human himself, but that kind of thing really got him worried about the hopes of Xavier's dream; if even mutants couldn't see past the appearances of fellow mutants, what hope did they have of appealing to humanity as a whole?

The symbiote seemed to calm down as it looked over them. "Now can we talk rather than fight each other?"

"That all depends if you are going to give up quietly or not," Sage said firmly, trying to sound more confident than she felt; in their current state, she doubted the X-Men could have handled just Mysterio on their own, to say nothing of someone as powerful as Venom.

"Sage, I really don't want to fight; I'm not in the mood," the symbiote responded, dropping the Storm she had over her shoulder unceremoniously; since the Storm with the other X-Men had to be the real one- after all, Sage and Bishop were probably smart enough to work out some way of telling the difference between the real thing and a copy- than what she had been carrying had to be a fake of sorts.

Her 'burden' unloaded, the symbiote turned to stare at them with an even look. "I will, however," she added, a fixed gleam in her eyes behind the Spider-Man-like 'mask', "defend myself should you attack me; no matter what you think of me, I'm _alive_… and I _won't_ let you kill me."

It was a stand-off now, as nobody seemed to be moving at all as the symbiote glared at the X-Men. Yet Sage knew they couldn't stand around forever; the city was still in dire straights because of Khan's attempted invasion, and Storm and Gambit needed immediate medical attention.

Suddenly, just as she was trying to come up with an alternative plan to deal with the current problem, she noticed the symboite's head jerk up, as though listening to something in the air.

"Were you guys expecting company?" the symbiote asked the X-Men. glancing back at them just as the sound she must have heard became audible to the mutant heroes. Before anyone could reply, the object _creating _the sound appeared in the air, answering the immediate question of what was causing the sound.

It was a jet that was landing close by to them.

One that the X-men recognized easily enough; after all, more than one of their members had joined the team in question at various points in the past.

It was an Avengers Quinjet.

"The Avengers?" Bishop muttered, half in surprise as he studied the jet; he supposed that they should almost have expected Earth's premier official team of heroes to respond to a crisis like this- alien invasions weren't exactly the kind of thing that could be missed- but it was still a surprise.

As the team watched the jet land- the symbiote moving slightly to the background as though to avoid detection- the doors opened and three figures stepped out of the jet.

The first figure was dressed in a predominately blue outfit, with red boots, a white star in the chest, red-and-white stripes around the middle, and a blue cowl that only exposed his eyes, mouth and chin. Two small wings were on either side of the cowl, and he carried a large, circular, red-and-white shield in one hand. The X-Men instantly recognized him as Captain America, one of the first costumed heroes in the world and a legend ever since his service during the Second World War.

The second figure was dressed entirely in red and gold armour, concealing his entire body from anybody else. The armour was very thick and appeared to be state-of-the-art technology; jets were visible on the bottom of the feet and blasters were situated in the hands. Again, he was a distinctive character; he was Iron Man, one of the few costumed heroes whose identity was a mystery even to the vast majority of the others in the hero community.

The third figure was just as easily recognizable as the other two. At first glance he appeared to simply be wearing a green outfit with yellow boots and gloves, a yellow cape and a red mask, but closer examination revealed that this was his actual _body_, rather than a costume, He was the android Avenger known predominately as the Vision, and he was currently looking at the X-Men with an expression that was as close to inquisitive as a generally emotionless android was ever likely to get.

"Greetings," the Vision said, nodding in greeting at the other heroes. "I trust you are all well?"

"Uh… yeah, we're fine," Heather said, looking at the Avengers bemusedly; even after spending the last few months with the X-Men, it was still kind of a shock to find herself talking to the _Avengers _themselves. "What… what are you doing here?"

"We heard the news about the apparent alien activity down here; as we came down we started to get damage reports," Iron Man explained, indicating himself and his allies. "We spotted you from above, so we decided we'd head down here and offer assistance to you."

"Still, it looks like you've managed to get the situation under control," Captain America added, glancing back at the battered but otherwise intact city before them before looking back at the X-Men. "Sorry we were too late to help out with the actual problem."

"Don't worry about it; we appreciate the concern anyway," Bishop returned. "We _are_ going to need the help though; we've got injured people right now, and as for the city..."

"Already being taken care of," Iron Man replied. "The rest of the Avengers are already helping out with the local authorities in rescue efforts and emergency MASH units are already being set up for the injured."

"I wish we could say everything is fine but it isn't," Sage stated, drawing looks from the Avengers. "As Bishop stated earlier, we have wounded that need help…"

She took a deep breath, a part of her registering that this would be the first time she was actually, vocally admitting their current crisis to even herself, and looked over towards the green-yellow woman. "And we have a team mate who's been possessed."

"Possessed?" Iron Man asked, turning to look in the direction that Sage had glanced, only for his eyes to apparently widen under his helmet at the sight. "What the…?"

"It's Rogue. She's possessed by a symbiote- similar to Venom or Carnage," Bishop announced. "We don't know how it happened, and it's a point we'd appreciate some help with… but like Sage said, our more immediate concern right now is that we have injured who we'd appreciate some help with; Storm and Gambit in particular need help as soon as possible."

"We'll take them." Captain America replied, nodding at the temporally-relocated mutant with a small smile of approval. The World War Two veteran was about to go to Gambit when the symbiote was standing over him, glaring critically at the lead Avenger.

"Not without me," the symbiote replied, glaring at the joint Avengers and X-Men. "I don't care how many of you there are; I am _going _with him."

"That's not going to happen," Captain America said, raising his shield defensively, the Vision and Iron Man moving in behind him. "That man needs _urgent _medical attention-"

"Yes, he does, but I am _not_ going to leave his side!" the symbiote said, emotion that shouldn't have been there before glaring back at the Captain. "Who knows what could happen! What if he..."

For a moment, the symbiote trailed off, apparently overcome by emotion, then it collected itself and turned its gaze back on the leader of the Avengers. "When he wakes up, Rogue should be by his side."

"She should but she can't; not like this," Iron Man said, raising his right hand. "Now unless you want us to REALLY treat you like the enemy, back away from him."

"Boy, you people really are racist, aren't you, TinMan?" the symbiote spat, feeling increasingly agitated as she glared in Iron Man's direction. "So much for being heroes; I look a little different, and suddenly _I'm_ the badguy?"

"I'm not joking," the armoured Avenger replied, his expression as unreadable as ever; if the 'Tin' comment insulted him, he didn't show it.

The symbiote would have said something else, but she felt someone holding her leg and her attention was distracted.

"Cherè..." a weak voice with a familiar accent gasped from behind her. "If you be in there... don't let it win..."

The as-yet-unnamed symbiote stared at Remy for a moment, expression unreadable, before her 'face/mask' retracted over her head, leaving Rogue's head as normal as ever. "Remy...?"

"Cherè?" the Cajun asked as Rogue, apparently once again in charge of her body, went down to her knees, not noticing her new 'costume'.

"Remy, what... what happened? Where's Vargas?" Rogue asked, absolutely confused, even more so when she looked up and saw the company she was in. "Where did all of ya come from? What's goin' on here?!"

"Rogue?" Sage asked, seeing her comrade's face again; was she in control once more, or was the symbiote trying to put them off-guard by making it _look _as though she was in charge of her body once again?

"What Sage?" Rogue said, glancing over anxiously at her friend. "What ya all doin' now standin' like statues? Remy needs help bad! Vargas stabbed us..."

She froze then, realizing what she'd just said for the first time.

She was absolutely fine, yet Vargas had stabbed her AND Remy together; indeed, she was pretty sure that he'd impaled her heart.

How could she still be _alive_?

As she took in the fact that her teammates were all staring at her- along with no less than three members of the Avengers- Rogue trailed off, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. She had no idea what had happened, but she was growing ever more convinced that something drastic had taken place.

"Why..." she asked, looking anxiously at Sage for an explanation of some sort. "Why ya all starin' at meh like... like…"

Whatever Rogue was about to compare herself to was destined never to be revealed, as she looked down at that moment and saw her hands, no longer was she wearing gloves. Instead her hands were covered in some kind of green-yellow 'costume' with overly sharp nails that were definitely _not _normal.

"What..." Rogue gasped, raising her left hand to stare at it in confusion. "What is...?"

Raising the other hand, she tried to pull at the left hand, only to realize pretty quickly that nothing was happening; not only could she not actually pull the glove off, but even when she did make contact, it felt more like goo instead of a uniform.

"What tha hell is this!?" she yelled, as she continually tried and failed to gain some kind of purchase on her new 'costume'. "_What tha hell IS this stuff_?!"

"Rogue, I need you to calm down-" Sage began, raising her hands in a calming gesture.

"_Calm down_?!" Rogue interjected, looking incredulously over at her friend. "How am Ah supposed to _calm down_ here?! Storm and Remy are in bad shape, yet Ah'm fine even though Ah was run through with a sword _right through mah heart_! Ah want _answers_!"

Glancing around anxiously, her eyes fell on Captain America; he'd taken advantage of her distraction to walk around her to pick up Remy's fallen body.

"Where are ya goin' with him?!" Rogue yelled at the Avenger as he hauled the Cajun mutant up in his arms.

"We have to take them to the MASH unit now," the Avengers' leader said, looking at Rogue in a manner that brooked no argument. "The doctors will help them."

"Not without meh," Rogue said simply. She began to move forward, only for Iron Man, who walked right in front the mutant, blocking her path. "Get out of mah way shellhead."

"I'm sorry, Rogue- if that's really you in control," Iron Man said, his gauntlets raised in preparation for any attempts at an attack, "but you can't leave here."

"'Really meh? In control?' What are ya talkin' about?!" Rogue demanded to know. "Somebody tell meh now!"

**They mean me. They don't trust me.**

Rogue blinked, frozen in shock; she didn't recognize that voice.

As if things weren't bad enough already, now she had _this _to deal with?

"What tha Hell is happening ta me?!" Rogue yelled, looking desperately around at her friends as she stared at her hands, growing increasingly more panicked as she realized that, whatever the problem was, it wasn't going to just go away. "Why is there a voice in mah head that isn't supposed ta be there?"

Sage and Bishop exchanged a look with each other. As the rest of the team had no way to say anything at the moment- Storm alone was presently incapacitated now due to serious injuries, and the others hadn't known Rogue for long enough- or, in the case of the Avengers, didn't know her well enough- to know how to speak to her- it was down to one of them to answer Rogue's question.

"Rogue," Sage said, pausing for a moment before deciding it was best to say this as simply as she could, "you have a symbiote bonded to you."

"Ah... Ah have a WHAT?!"

**A symbiote- you know, an alien who bonds with your body and enhances your physical abilities?** 'said' the voice in her head, one that sounded like her own voice but without her southern accent. **To be more specific, the symbiote is none other than me. Nice to 'meet' you at last, Anna Marie.**

Rogue froze, in disbelief over hearing her name, her _real_ name, spoken to her.

She hadn't told anyone her real name.

Only Mystique and Destiny knew her real name and they had never told a soul.

Yet this… this _thing_… that had apparently bonded to her at some unknown time, and whose motives and origins she had absolutely noidea about… knew something she hadn't even told her closest friends.

"This... this is insane!" she yelled, staring in shock at the new 'costume' covering her body.

"This is why we can't let you go," Iron Man explained, indicating the costume that covered Rogue's body as the female mutant turned back to look at him. "Symbiotes are too dangerous to be allowed free reign. After all the destruction caused by Venom and Carnage, we can't take any chances of a new one getting free; who knows _what_ its plans are?"

It was then that the symbiote reared its head back, covering Rogue's head with the familiar sharp-toothed, long-tongued head of the symbiote's as it glared at the armoured billionaire in front of it.

"My plans?!" the symboite yelled at Iron Man, her claws almost instinctively lengthening as her temper rose. "Unless you count my desire to remain with Rogue my plan, I have none! All I want is to live! I want to be..."

Suddenly, no sooner than Iron Man had raised his gauntlets to fire a sonic blast, the symbiote jerked to the left mid-sentence, her claws instantly retracting back to their 'normal' length.

"Wha..." 'Rogue' gasped, her voice suddenly back to normal even as the symbiote remained over her head. "Ah don't believe this..."

She looked over the others... past Sage and Bishop... past Iron Man and the Vision... and saw Davis was looking away from her, as if she was a monster.

Fear growing in the pit of her stomach, she turned around to look at her reflection in a broken window, seeing what she had become for the first time since this thing had activated.

It wasn't pretty.

"NO!!!" she screamed out, her mouth widening in shock as she took in the sight of what she'd become. As her mouth widened, exposing the sharp teeth and long tongue that the symbiote seemed to have given her, Rogue grew increasingly more horrified.

"NO!" she yelled again, and she would have gone flying if it wasn't for Bishop holding her down.

"Rogue no! We can't have you flying off!" Bishop yelled.

"Get it off!" Rogue snapped, barely even registering Bishop's attempts to help her; she was getting ever closer to a state that could only be described as 'total panic'. "Get it _off_ me!"

**As much as I want to get away myself,** the symbiote interjected from inside Rogue's head, **how about shutting up so the stupid heroes can take Remy and Storm to be treated- or do you _want_ them to die because the others were too busy trying to contain _us_?**

Even in her terrorized state, the symbiote's words stopped Rogue's panic attack; regardless of what else had happened to her, Remy was still her main concern.

Even if the look in his eyes as he stared at her was fear- something _else _she didn't want to believe; that she could inspire that kind of look from him under _any _circumstances- she wouldn't let him get hurt because of her.

She felt the living costume come off of her face, as though sensing her need, and saw Remy's look change to a more relieved one as her real face emerged. Both in relief that he was still alive, and in heartache that she could _ever _inspire that kind of look from him, she went slowly to him, her hand got to take his, wondering if he'd actually take it now.

She had never been more relieved than when he took her hand in his.

"Now, don't ya _dare_ die on mah," she said, staring harshly at Remy to make sure he got the point. "Not after all _this_."

"Not… after this... cherè," Remy said softly.

Looking over at Captain America, Rogue stared at him long and hard before letting breaking eye contact- a sign, Cap assumed, that meant that she going to let herself follow their orders.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely as he left the tomb, taking Gambit with him as the Vision reached down to take Storm in his arms.

With their injured members in good hands, all of the X-treme X-men started following the Avengers. The only exceptions were Bishop and Sage, who had positioned themselves alongside Iron Man just behind Rogue; if the symbiote _did _turn out to be dangerous, the armoured Avenger was the only one with weapons that could damage it without harming Rogue in the process.

"You should go with them," Sage said to Bishop, as the other X-Men approached the Quinjet with the other two Avengers. "Iron Man and I will stay here and keep an eye on Rogue."

"Are you sure about that?" the time-traveler replied, looking anxiously over at his colleague. "I mean, no offense, but I'm a bit of a bigger hitter in a fight than you are if things get ugly-"

"If the symbiote is what it says it is, then we are in no danger," Sage said simply. "More importantly, with Storm incapacitated, someone of seniority has to be with the team while they are being tended to the doctors, and you've got more authority with the team than I am."

"Go Bishop," Rogue said to her teammate. "Ah'm not goin' ta let this thing harm anyone."

**Ahem!** the symbiote snapped. **A bit _less _of the hostility, if you please! Did it ever occur to you that I've gone to a lot of effort to _not _kill Vargas when I could have done that far more _easily_ than crippling him?**

Even as she was trying to ignore the symbiote, Rogue had to admit that it did have a point; it couldn't exactly have been easy to injure Vargas enough to cripple him without doing so much damage that he ended up dead as a result of her work…

Right now, however, Rogue was more concerned about the fact that she had an alien life form hanging around in her body against her will; other factors would have to wait until she'd figured out what the hell was going on in her head.

Bishop looked over to Rogue once more- apparently not registering the inner argument she was having with the symbiote- before nodding in acceptance at her.

"Be careful," he said simply, before he took off running to the Quinjet. In a minute it was in the air, leaving only Rogue, Sage and Iron Man alone on the ground.

"Now then, start talking," Sage demanded, seeing the symbiote cover Rogue's face once more, its teeth and tongue showing.

"Don't start ordering me around," it said before part of its face was exposed, revealing Rogue's normal mouth.

"Stop that!" Rogue's normal voice yelled, apparently at the symbiote.

"Like hell I will!" Rogue's voice came from the mouth that was half human half alien, once again sounding like the symbiote before it shifted back to Rogue's normal one.

"How about ya stop tryin' ta take over?!" the southern belle yelled, before the symbiote's 'head' covered her own once again.

"I need to get my point across and to do that I need to be heard!" the symbiote retorted. Beside Rogue, Iron Man and Sage exchanged uncertain glances; even after all their years in the business, it was still strange to see someone arguing with, technically, _themselves_.

"Well try another way than takin' over my face!" Rogue snapped back, the symbiote's 'head' having once again 'pulled back' to expose her real head.

There a pause right now, as the Symbiote thought it over and decided on what plan to take now. Suddenly the symbiote covered the left half of Rogue's face, leaving the right half normal. "This work out for you?" the symbiote asked

"... Ah must look very disturbin'," Rogue sighed, shaking her head.

Sage and Iron Man watched on as this had to be one of the oddest, if not the oddest conversation they ever saw. "Your thoughts?" the armoured man asked, glancing over at the mutant beside him.

"Well… I've read a lot about Venom and Carnage- particularly after the Carnage Riots- and it's not behaving like a normal symbiote," Sage said, looking uncertainly back at Rogue. "I'm not sure, but the symbiote _might_ be telling the truth about herself…"

She didn't finish the sentence, but Iron Man nodded in understanding and lowered his gauntlets; he was still prepared to attack if he needed to, but he wasn't actively 'hostile' any more.

Ignoring the conversation between the other two heroes, Rogue and her symbiote were in thought for a while before Rogue spoke. "So... how long ya been in side meh? Years?"

"If it was years, you would have found out already," the symbiote replied. "I have been with you all of my life though… however short that is."

"Uh… however short?" Rogue asked, confused at the recent comment. How short _was _short by symbiote standards; she had no real idea how long these things could live for…

"I'm a newborn; I'm only a week old," the symbiote answered.

"You're a _baby_?!" Rogue exclaimed in disbelief.

"It takes just about a week for us to fully mature to the point where we can interact with our host," the symbiote responded. "My... mother, I guess you would call her… needed to get someone strong enough to support me."

"And how in tha world did this happen?" Rogue wanted to know. Surely she would have known if a symbiote was planted on her…

"No, you wouldn't know; that was the point," the Symbiote said to Rogue; whether it had actually read the thought that had been crossing Rogue's mind or it was just a lucky guess, Rogue didn't know. "I don't even know how I came into you… I just know 'Mom' put me in you."

"... can you show me what 'Mommy' looks like?" Rogue wanted to know. She REALLY wanted to say hi to mommy.

**Sure thing,** the symbiote said in Rogue's head. **Just a mo… there you go!**

Instantly, an image suddenly appeared in Rogue's mind of a woman she'd never seem before, in two different appearances. One appearance had the woman looking relatively normal, with dark red shoulder-length hair and a harsh face, dressed in a tight green T-shirt and jeans, while the other appearance had her looking similar to the 'classic' appearance of a symbiote; large white 'eyes', sharp teeth and claws, and a form-fitting costume in a red and yellow flame-like pattern; the mass of orange hair with the yellow streak in the centre was the only thing that differed her from Venom and Carnage.

**Rogue, meet my 'mommy',** the symboite said inside Rogue's head. **This is the symbiote known as 'Scream', also called Donna when she's a normal human.**

_Yikes_, Rogue mused to herself at the image.

No two ways about it; this woman was one freaky-looking customer…

"Ah don't suppose ya can tell meh where 'Mommy' is, can ya?" Rogue asked, bringing her mind back to the immediate topic at hand.

"As a mater of fact, I could," the symbiote said, once again speaking out of the left side of Rogue's own mouth. "The bond between parent and child can be felt. She's here… somewhere."

"OK then," Rogue said, getting up and stretching slightly. "Time ta get movin'."

"Rogue?" Sage asked, her and Iron Man tensing slightly as their ally stood up. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Going ta get answers," Rogue growled at the other mutant; she acknowledged that it was probably mostly from the symbiote, but she was getting _really _frustrated with this woman at the moment. "Ya want to chaperone meh, fine, but ah need _answers_ about this… Not mention people in this city need help."

Iron Man and Sage looked at each other briefly, as though trying to come to a decision, before Sage looked back at Rogue.

"Agreed," she said simply.

"Just one thing," Iron Man added, indicating her symbiote costume. "Going around like that? That would definitely be a bad idea."

Glancing down at herself, Rogue saw his point; right now, with the symbiote's sharp teeth and claws, she looked uncomfortably like Carnage. No sooner had the thought of changing crossed her mind, than she felt the symbiote go off her face, subsequently receding away from her body, leaving only her X-Men uniform…

The only odd thing was that her clothes had changed as well. It was still her X-Men uniform, but instead of it being her X-Treme X-Men outfit, it was her original green and yellow costume- the one she hadn't worn since she'd left the manor all those months ago.

**Your clothes were a mess,** the symbiote's 'voice' explained inside Rogue's mind. **Thought I'd fix it up.**

Rogue simply shook her head as she turned around, faced the air above her, and took a leap up to fly... only to fall face first into the ground.

"Rogue!" Sage yelled in shock, hurrying over to her teammate's side and quickly helping her up. "Are you all right?"

"Ah... Ah don't know…" Rogue muttered, not sure what to make of this at all.

She _felt _fine, but her powers just… didn't seem to be there.

Glancing around, she saw a heavy stone not that far from her. Walking over to it, Rogue bent down, grabbed it, and, much to her relief, lifted it up with relative ease.

"Well," she said, smiling slightly over at Sage as she tossed the rock off to the side, "Ah may not be able ta fly, but at least Ah still have mah strength."

**Actually… you don't,** the symbiote said in her head, once again sounding almost sheepish as it spoke. **That's… well, that's me boosting your strength. I think, right now, after getting stabbed like that… you _may_ have burned out your powers a bit.**

"_What_?" Rogue asked, her eyes widening in shock.

She'd _lost _her powers?

**I don't know for sure, unfortunately,** the symbiote said in her mind, once again sounding more apologetic than Rogue would ever have expected a symbiote to be. **I need to look at it more. I need time to understand and explore your powers more to know exactly _what _happened...**

Then her 'voice' seemed to brighten a bit as she continued to speak. **But, on the bright side, I can provide you with all the extra strength you'll need to hold your own if things get ugly with 'Mom'.**

"And who actually _said _ya could do _either _of those?" Rogue demanded, not caring about the odd looks Iron Man and Sage were giving her right now; all that mattered was that they knew she wasn't talking to a non-existent voice in her head, so at least they wouldn't be having her committed or anything like that.

**Do you really want to go after mom without _anything_ backing you... or you don't trust me at all?** the symbiote's voice asked critically inside Rogue's head.

Rogue blinked, thinking that over.

It _was _true that she didn't want to go up against something that could conceivably possess the strength of Venom or Carnage without _some _kind of power to 'back her up' if she needed to fight.

It was just that…

Well, it wasn't exactly _distrust_ of the symbiote that was the problem; she just wasn't sure _what_ she thought of the symbiote to be honest. After all, right now, there wasn't any real malice in it…

But, even so, she wasn't going to let her go peaking through her head, _or _rely on 'her'- if symbiotes could be said to have 'genders'- alone in a fight.

"Ah got friends," she said simply. "That'll be enough."

The symbiote didn't give a response, so Rogue turned to look at Iron Man and Sage, a quizzical eyebrow raised.

"Come on," she said to them, indicating the street before her. "Let's go."

Just as she was about to walk off, she paused and spoke once more to the symbiote. "And make sure to tell meh when we're getting close to 'mother dearest'."

"Rogue… are you sure about this?" Sage asked, looking uncertainly at her friend.

"Well… not completely, no," Rogue admitted as they started to move. "But Ah need to start somewhere with this thing, an' right now, the only thing that can give meh answers as to whether or not Ah can really trust it or not is in this city and Ah need to find her…"

She sighed slightly as she turned around to look back at the buildings around her, an anxious expression on her face as she studied them.

"If she isn't already dead…" she muttered to herself briefly.

* * *

_And I just had this apartment for less than a month._ Donna Kingsly growled, looking outside the apartment complex she lived in Madripoor. Sure, the building she had for her business was intact, but did she really want to live there while looking for another place?

**Don't you mean do _we_ want to live there?** the voice in the back of her head said coyly.

_Not now Scream; I'm a_ bit _busy lamenting a hundred thousand dollar loss_, Donna grumbled. Her life was very different from what it once had been. It was amazing the relationship she had with her symbiote now as opposed to when it had all started.

Nearly seven years ago she had been a member of the Life Foundation, an organization that was preparing for the M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) fallout of the Cold War and provide a comfortable life for their wealthy clients after the impending nuclear holocaust. She was a mercenary, highly trained in intelligence, deception and assassination. The right figures and they signed her on for this _very_ experimental project, of which she would become the unofficial team leader.

The project was to bond her to a symbiote that had been forcibly spawned from the Venom symbiote, which they had captured at that time. Her and four others, for a total of five Symbiote Guardians, who would protect the nuclear bunkers of the rich and 'important' in the event of the nuclear war breaking out. Her symbiote she ended up calling Scream, because during the entire procedure where the symbiote had bonded with her, all Donna had been able to do was simply scream. Scream in pain and agony.

Eventually, however, the Venom symbiote had escaped, rebonded with Eddie Brock, and, with Spider-Man's help, 'destroyed' the symbiotes. The Foundation was able to restore them, but, unfortunately, things from there just went from bad to worse. The Foundation became more strict and unyielding, until eventually even the lives of the so-called Symbiote Guardians were at risk, and so Donna and her 'team'- for lack of a better term- had fled, fugitives on the run all the while trying to gain control over their symbiotes which were threatening to take them over.

Eventually she and the others broke Eddie Brock out of prison to learn how to do that... but that's when things went from bad to worse, as she became increasingly convinced that the symbiotes, and the people bonded to them, were evil. In her head, she heard more voices than just Scream's; voices that told her that they were evil and they all had to die…

She killed the members of her team, and their symbiotes, despite Scream's own protests over it, framing Venom for it until they were the only two left. At the last minute, Venom had subdued her, however, and left her to be incarcerated at the super-criminal prison known as the Vault.

Oddly enough, it was her incarceration there that ended the voices… save for Scream, for obvious reasons. Once the doctors discovered she had schizophrenia, they started her on medication to deal with it. Her symbiote, which had been separated from her for study, managed to break free and find her while she was under the effects of the medication.

Taking all of that into account, she was able to make certain that the effect of the drugs remained so long as Scream was bonded to her, subduing the voices and leaving Donna with two options; deal with one voice in her head for the rest of her life and have a semi sane life, or stay in prison with voices on and off and nightmares all her life.

With her choices limited to those two, and finding nothing appealing in being stuck in a cell for the rest of her existence, she chose option A and made a break from prison. However, considering how the prison staff ended up being possessed by symbiotes themselves and some of them ended up as used-up husks, it helped with her escape; people generally assumed she'd died in the chaos herself.

Since that time, she had been working on finding other symbiotes, though now she was trying to ascertain if they were of good or ill intent instead of simply killing them. Killing was something Donna no longer wanted and oddly enough, neither did Scream. It helped having a regular supply of chocolate around- the only other easy-to-access supply of the chemical the symbiote depended on, thus limiting Donna's desire to eat human brains- although it had all gone to her hips.

_Although that wasn't entirely a bad thing,_ she remarked to herself; she'd always wanted a bit more flesh around there, being perpetually a bit of a skinny girl when she was growing up.

Eventually though, people found out she wasn't dead, and she was, unfortunately, still wanted for murders she had committed while she had been 'insane'; apparently, the courts generally ruled that those bonded with symbiotes couldn't be cleared on the grounds of insanity as the symbiote was, strictly speaking, an independent entity, so the symbiote and host were generally treated in legal terms as two separate people. Turning herself in would guarantee her and Scream's separation, and that meant she would once again become insane, hearing the many voices in her head all over again.

Donna would rather put a bullet in her head than hear a voice other than Scream's in her head. Not after all this time of peace.

**Oh and you consider this peace?** Scream mused.

Yet another thing that had happened over time. In the beginning, Scream was nothing more than urges, simple words that just had a meaning to Donna. Now, like rumours that Donna had heard about Venom and Carnage, she had a full-blown personality of her own and they had regular conversations. Scream could be temperamental at times, but her instinctive knowledge of what Donna wanted done in any situation made her easily the best partner Donna had ever had.

And for her job in Madripoor, working as a private investigator- specialising in the 'stranger' cases, naturally- two heads were better than one.

Here in Madripoor, she was safe because this country had a rule; any criminal within their borders cannot be extracted to another country to stand trial. Now that she was a citizen of Madripoor, she was safe from prosecution from her previous crimes.

She _would_ atone for them, Donna had vowed to herself. There was a lot to be done here in Madripoor, so Donna had plenty of opportunities to make up for her past crimes. It was also a very good place for her fellow...

**I don't _believe_ it…**

Donna blinked as she heard Scream's disbelief. _What is it?_ She asked her 'partner' anxiously

**My baby... ** Scream said, sounding genuinely happy- normally she was just satisfied at best- about something other than killing people (And even that had been a while in the past) for the first time since Donna and she had first bonded.** She's finally awake!**

Donna blinked in surprise; she could _hear_ the unholy joy in Scream's voice. She knew that the symbiote had picked someone to be her first child's host, but had no idea who.

**We are going!** the symbiote yelled in Donna's head.

Knowing better than to argue with her partner, Donna stood up and casually stretched her shoulders.

"Well then," she said, flexing her fingers as she allowed Scream to spread over her body once more, "let's not keep the baby waiting, shall we?"

**To Be Continued...**


	3. Volume 1 Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own the X-men, they belong to Marvel. What do own is the symbiote bonded to Rogue. I'd like to thank my friend Marcus for his help with this story, as he has been a godsend with betaing. I hope you enjoy this story._

**The Rogue Symbiote  
By David Knight**

**Volume One: Discovery  
Chapter Three: Mother and Daughter**

As Carol Danvers, the costumed hero commonly known as Warbird, flew through the air above Madripoor, she anxiously scanned her surroundings below her. She knew that the actual invasion part of this current problem was over- resolved by the X-Men, if what she'd heard on her way here was accurate- but, nevertheless, there was still a lot of clean-up work to be done.

From where she currently flew, she could see Janet Van Dyne- currently in giant form, naturally- helping to keep a couple of the taller buildings in the damaged parts of the city supported while the faint blur that was most likely Quicksilver zipped in and out of the main doors, each time depositing a couple of people outside before hurrying back in to search for more survivors. She vaguely noticed Hawkeye using a couple of his smaller explosive arrows to clear away from of the debris, while the distinctive green forms of the Vision and She-Hulk were easily visible in a couple of other buildings, She-Hulk holding one up while the inhabitants evacuated as the Vision explored another building for any further survivors.

All in all, things seemed to be under control.

_Might as well just head back…_ Carol mused to herself, as she adjusted her flight to start heading back towards where the Avengers Quinjet was currently parked. _After all, I'm not doing anyone any good out here…_

Then she heard a faint scream from a nearby building, and she quickly diverted her flight to investigate it. It only took her a moment to identify the building that had been the source of the scream- one of the smaller buildings in a relatively deserted street, with the front door blocked by rubble- and then she was diving towards the building, moving as fast as possible towards the building.

As she reached the building, Carol rapidly flew upwards to get a better look inside the building, taking in the people still inside; a young couple, probably married judging by the rings on their fingers, trapped at opposite ends of the top floor as flames blazed on the floor below them, rapidly devouring the stairs and the landing.

_Great,_ Carol thought to herself as she studied the situation before her.

With the rate that fire was spreading, she'd have to move fast if she was going to get them both out. She may be able to move at almost supersonic speeds herself, but when carrying people she had to slow down to avoid causing injuries from the acceleration. Added to the fact that she'd have to be careful not to fly through anything vital to the support of the building, and this wasn't going to be easy…

But she had to try.

She had no other choice.

With that quiet resolve, Carol dived forward as fast as possible, crashing through an already-damaged window before she landed beside the young woman, who was lying on a bed as she anxiously looked at Carol.

"Hi," Carol said, nodding casually at the woman before her, even as she noted that the woman's leg had been broken in the initial damage, which at least explained why she was still here; she'd have to be careful getting the woman out. "I'm Warbird; I'm with the Avengers. I'm here to help."

Not giving the woman a chance to respond, Carol picked the woman up, turned to look at the window…

Just as the house shook, causing a portion of the roof to collapse over the window that she'd just flown in by, leaving her stuck in the room with an injured woman and an exit that, if used, could cause the house to collapse at an even more rapid rate than it was already.

"Oh, crap…" she muttered, trying not to look at the woman she held in her arms; it wouldn't do for the civilian to see the hero in a state of panic. Maybe if she…

Before the thought could finish crossing Carol's mind, two things happened at once, followed closely by a third.

Firstly, a large amount of rubble was suddenly pulled away from the window in front of her.

Secondly, over the roar of the fire, she heard a faint crash from the other side of the house, accompanied by the familiar, comforting voice of Tony Stark in his Iron Man costume; evidently, Iron Man had shown up to rescue the man in the other room.

Thirdly- and this was the part that Carol _really_ had trouble believing- she suddenly saw multiple strands of some unidentifiable material be launched at the wall from some unknown exterior source, apparently holding the wall up despite the general fragility of the structure she was in at present.

_What the…_ Carol thought to herself, staring incredulously at the substance_. Is that… webbing?_

Her encounters with Spider-Man may have traditionally been rather limited, but she was pretty sure she recognized that substance before her as his webbing.

But… what the hell would the web-slinger be doing here? He wasn't an Avenger, Madripoor was too far out of his way for him to have just 'dropped in' for some reason, and nobody else could use his webbing; it was something he'd developed, rather than something he'd been given- so who…?

"GET OUT OF THERE, CAROL!" Stark's voice yelled from outside, breaking Carol's train of thought and bringing her back to the issue at hand; specifically, surviving the current situation. Taking a quick assessment of the opening in front of her, Carol leapt up into the air, flew through the window as rapidly-yet-carefully as she could, making sure her 'passenger' wasn't injured further, before landing outside the building…

And staring in surprise at the people in front of her.

The red-and-gold armored form of Iron Man wasn't that much of a surprise- after all, she'd known he was here, and she had heard his voice earlier. Even the presence of the new X-Men member who she vaguely recognized as Sage wasn't that much of a surprise, given that they'd already received reports of the X-men being present in Madripoor during the failed invasion.

It was the third person- someone that, considering the history between the two of them, more than understandably made her considerably more alert and tense than she had been already- that really surprised her.

"Rogue?" she said, staring in surprise at the woman in yellow and green, webbing stretching from her hands towards the still-unsteady structure of the building behind her.

"Carol," was the southern belle's simple and tight reply.

Despite her inner promise not to be surprised by anything she encountered in her superhero career, Carol couldn't help but stare incredulously.

Since when could _Rogue_ use webbing?

There was definitely more going on in this city than she'd initially expected…

* * *

"Ugh…" Gambit muttered to himself, clutching his head as he slowly tried to blink his eyes open against the brilliant white that suddenly seemed to be surrounding him.

_Where the hell…? _he muttered to himself, glancing at her surroundings in confusion. The last thing he remembered was trying to tell Sage about what had happened to Rogue, the pain in his guts being almost overwhelming from where Vargas had stabbed him earlier…

"Remy?" a voice said from outside the room, breaking his train of thought. "Ya in there?"

_Rogue?_ Gambit tried to say, looking anxiously in the direction of the voice, only to find that he couldn't say anything himself.

_What the…?_ he thought to himself, raising a hand to examine his throat and mouth. Nothing seemed to be damaged, and he knew for a fact that he'd only been stabbed in the chest earlier, so why was he suddenly unable to speak?

Glancing around himself for some kind of assistance, his eyes widened slightly as he saw Rogue walk into the room, dressed once more in her X-Treme X-Men costume, looking at him with an almost… sultry smile.

If anything, that made Gambit even more worried; given Rogue's powers, he could count the occasions where she'd looked at him with sex in mind on the fingers of one hand.

If she was actively looking at him like that…

Then Rogue leaned over and kissed him, cutting off any attempt on his part to even try and ask her what was going on here. Even as his subconscious tried to take in the fact that he was not only being _kissed_ by Rogue, but that he was being kissed without experiencing any of the usual 'side-effects' this action would normally have caused, the rest of him was more concerned with the fact that she hadn't provided him with any explanation as to how this could be happening…

Gambit's train of thought was suddenly- almost brutally- interrupted as he felt two hands suddenly grasp his neck. For a moment, he wondered how someone could have sneaked up without him registering it, but that was the easy question to answer.

Even amid his confusion about what was taking place, he'd closed his eyes while kissing Rogue…

And, now that he'd opened them in shock, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

His Rogue- his beloved chere, the woman he loved despite being unable to even kiss her without risking a coma- was staring at him with a grin that wouldn't have looked out of place on Sabertooth, her fingers tightly around his neck as a strange green-and-yellow… substance (Gambit couldn't even begin to wonder what it actually was) spread across her body, enveloping even her head until she was only 'dressed' in a skintight 'costume' (For lack of a better term), with a set of teeth and a long tongue that wouldn't have been out of place on a carnivorous dinosaur.

Before Gambit could even try to say anything- although he doubted his earlier state of muteness had gone away yet- the symbiote that had taken over Rogue's body lashed out with her claws, impaling Gambit in the chest again and again. Even unable to say anything, Gambit tried to voice his agony, his mouth open in a silent scream as further 'knives' were jabbed into his chest, the thing that had control of the woman he loved smirking at his pain…

Then, with no warning, she withdrew her hands from his chest, extending one claw on her right hand as she glared at him.

"Ah'm bored of ya now… Swamp rat," the alien said, her almost childish tone of voice drastically contrasted by the sadistic look on her face as she stared mockingly down at him. "Momma was right. You ARE trash!"

She threw her head back, laughing as she clawed at his throat with one slash, slitting it, the blood rushing out, his life fading, and all he could hear was the unholy laughter of the thing that had taken control of the woman he loved...

* * *

"NO!!" Gambit screamed, shooting up sharply from what his brain only barely processed was a bed of some kind; the feel of the sheets on his skin, coupled with the sharp pain in his chest, brought him back to reality.

"Easy there, my Cajun friend," a voice said to him from off to the side; Gambit sensed more than saw the large furry hand on his shoulder.

"H… Hank?" he muttered, blinking blearily through the pain as he stared at his blue-furred comrade.

"Yes… it's me," the mutant known commonly as Beast said, smiling casually at Gambit before his expression became more serious. "And, quite frankly, you're lucky to be anyway after those injuries you took; if you'd lost much more blood you probably wouldn't even be here right now."

"Damn…" Gambit muttered to himself, staring ruefully up at the ceiling as he mulled over that thought before glancing back at Beast. "When'd… ye get here?"

"A few hours ago," Hank replied, his manner as casual as you could expect from a business meeting rather than a hospital visit with a nearly fatally-injured friend. "We saw the news about the invasion and took the Blackbird to get us here as quickly as possible. We knew that there was a pretty good chance you'd end up needing some help."

"Ugh… us?" Gambit asked, looking in confusion at his friend; Hank seemed to be the only one who was actually here at the moment…

"Logan, Jean and Kurt are here as well," Beast explained, before sighing as he glanced at the door. "In the end, it was a good thing we showed up when we did; Jean had to delve into Ororo's psyche to bring her back from where she was. It was so close…"

For a moment, Beast paused, shaking his head in an apparent attempt to dispel his fears about what might have been, before he looked at his friend once again, an expression of only partly false cheeriness on his face. "Fortunately, everyone will be all right."

"Everyone save Rogue…" Gambit sighed. He thought for a moment that he'd have to explain what that meant, but then he saw Hank look down awkwardly and knew that Hank knew what had taken place.

"Who told ya?" he asked his blue-furred friend anxiously.

"It vas Bishop who told us… vell, vunce everyone vas out of ze voods," a new voice answered. Gambit looked up best as he could to see Nightcrawler walking in.

"Logan and Jean are out in the city looking for her along with helping out with the rescue efforts," Hank added, shaking his head in wonder at what had happened. "I must say, this is a rather great shock."

"'Shock' is too light a word for this, _mes amis_," Remy growled, not pleased at all by the events that had transpired. "Anyone find Vargas? Dead or alive?"

"Wanda and the Vision found him being helped by his associates trying to get on a transport out. All three of them are custody," Beast answered. "I doubt Vargas will be troubling anyone again."

"Not after the symbiote crippled the bastard," Gambit muttered.

"Vait, you mean it vas the _symbiote_ that crippled the scumbag?" Kurt asked, looking over at his friends in surprise.

"Yeah," was all Gambit had to say in reply.

"... let us hope that when Logan and Jean find Rogue that Jean can give us some answers," Hank said. Everything he heard only left him increasingly curious as to what, exactly, they were dealing with here. He'd never encountered Venom or other symbiotes in his career, but the killer's history had made for very 'disturbing' (For lack of a better term) reading, and his brutality was well-known to the majority of Earth's costumed heroes, along with the lethal reputation of his spawn such as Carnage.

For one of Venom's 'children' to actually resist the temptation to kill somebody at the slightest provocation…

There was definitely something different about this symbiote.

Whether it was a good different, a bad different, or just a 'different' different, was something they'd have to wait to find out.

* * *

The tension was just awkward between them as was the silence. After the initial shock of seeing the other again had worn off, Rogue and Carol had split up from Iron Man and Sage, the better to cover more ground and find any more survivors.

Now, the two of them were alone, working together despite all of the history they had between each other. Even with what happened during the Kang War where they worked together, there was still a good deal of tension between them; after all, Rogue's actions had left Carol in a coma.

The fact that Tony had told her that Rogue had a symbiote in her now didn't help at all.

"Ah'm glad yah're here," Rogue said suddenly, catching Warbird's attention as she was pulling out rocks.

"Oh?" Warbird asked, tossing the rocks she was holding of to the side as she looked inquiringly at Rogue; she personally doubted there was anybody here, but it couldn't hurt to check at least. "Why's that?"

"Cause ya're the only Ah trust ta put meh down if this goes bad," Rogue said simply. "Yah won't pull punches. Everyone else will. If things go bad, if she's not what she says she is..."

**I'm sensing a big lack of faith,** the symbiote sighed inside Rogue's head. **This relationship is already on the rocks and it's only because of past discrimination against my species; could you please just remember that I've gone to a lot of effort to not brutally murder people in a fight?**

Warbird noticed the stop in Rogue's speech and had a guess what that was; however, right now, she was more focused on trying to believe what she was being asked to do here.

"You certainly have a lot of faith in me," she said as she looked at Rogue

"Ah know ya'll do what needs to be done." Rogue said before speaking in her mind. _And the reason Ah'm doing this is not that Ah don't trust ya; it's that Ah have ta adjust ta this._

**Meaning you don't trust me,** the symbiote 'replied' bluntly.

_That's not what Ah meant._

**Sure it is.**

"No, it isn't!" Rogue snapped, barely even registering her shift from thought to spoken.

Carol shook her head and sighed. _Even I wouldn't wish this upon her… and she mind-raped me **and** stole my powers way back in the day, _the human/Kree hybrid mused silently to herself.

There was no other way to say it; things around here were definitely starting to get… _unusual_, to say the least.

* * *

Jean Grey, also known as Phoenix, shook her head. Not just at the devastation that she saw done here in Madripoor, but because of what she could feel coming off of Logan's emotions as he stood beside her.

"Torture is _not_ an option," she said critically as she glanced over at her teammate.

"You haven't had this misfortune to have one of those suckers on you Red," Wolverine growled. "Be thankful you haven't."

Shaking her head slightly as they continued walking- even after all these years, some things never changed- Jean sighed and tried to change the subject away from what Logan would want to do to whoever gave Rogue that symbiote when they found her. "I can only imagine what Rogue is going through right now…"

"You can imagine, Jeannie," Logan snorted over at her. "I know..." He stopped in his tracks, and Jean stopped with him.

"What is it?" she asked. Only Logan didn't respond to her; he simply started walking, moving away as it seemed…

That was, he seemed to be moving away until he jumped into a nearby alleyway, tackling a young blonde haired teenager who'd been standing in the shadows.

"Ahhhhh! Please! Stop! He's an alien! He's going to…" the girl shrieked, until Logan grabbed her by the throat and then hauled her up against the side of the building.

"Newsflash, _Scream_; I can smell your 'old man' no matter what he looks like, and I can smell you just as easily," Logan said, his tone clearly not a playful one as he glared at the woman whose throat he held in his hands. "Now, drop the innocent girl act; I want to speak to your host."

Jean watched on with a bit of horror at what she had initially perceived to be something totally out of character with Logan, until she saw the innocent blonde 'shift' (For lack of a better description) and turn into an adult redhead, who looked at the adamantium-boned mutant with a small smirk.

"For the record," the woman whose name was apparently 'Scream' said, her arms folded as she smiled casually at Logan, "I happen to be a citizen of Madripoor now, and I have no intention of being a problem to anyone. So if you want to take me back to the States for something I did in the past. I have three words for you: Immunity. From. Prosecution."

Staring at the woman who was Scream's host, as she confidently stood in front of him, as casually as though she'd just been chatting with some friends in a bar somewhere, Logan once again regretted that he didn't do the 'berserk warrior' thing any more.

It would have been so easy to just rip her to pieces in a blind rage at what she'd done to the young woman he'd come to regard as a close friend over the years, making him proud of how far she'd come in her life no matter how difficult it sometimes was for her to interact effectively with other people due to her powers …

_Ta Hell with it_, Logan thought to himself; he wasn't going to just stand by and let this thing get away if she had anything to do with what had happened to Rogue.

Lunging forward, he grabbed Donna by the throat, and, despite Jean's yells of protest- clearly _she_ was still trying to respect the 'diplomacy' thing even if he couldn't give a shit about it- hauled her towards him, simultaneously raising his other hand, extending his claws as he aimed a fist at her face…

Then, in the split moment before the blades made contact and penetrated her skull like it was made of paper, the middle claw retracted, leaving Scream's throat clutched in Logan's right hand as two of the claws on his left positioned themselves on either side of her head

"That precious _diplomatic immunity_," Logan growled, his eyes narrowed as though he were a wild animal studying its next meal, "means shit to me if I find out you're the one that gave Rogue a symbiote."

To Logan's surprise, he saw that Donna's eyes were full of terror and worry.

"Scream…" the woman said uncertainly, her jaw moving slightly under the simple 'mask' the symbiote had become. For a moment, there was silence, then a 'mask' formed over her mouth, which then split into the familiar sharp-toothed grin of the symbiote as a slightly different voice spoke.

"Yes, Donna?" the voice said, as casually as though it wasn't facing the possibility of having an adamantium blade shoved right through its brain.

"WERE YOU OUT OF YOUR FLIPPIN MIND!?!" Donna snapped, as the symbiote's sharp-toothed mouth 'faded' away, leaving her with regular mouth. "You slipped your baby into an X-MAN of all people?!"

"Check," Logan growled, staring at 'Scream' with eyes that might as well have been ice for all the warmth that was visible in them. "That's all I wanted to know…"

_STOP!!!_ A voice suddenly 'yelled' in Logan's head.

"Relax Jean," Logan said coolly. "I'm not going to kill her. I'd only be killing the host, not Scream; I've fought Venom enough ta know that he'd just jump ship if Brock ever bought it." He looked at Donna with narrowed eyes. "And the only reason I ain't doing _you_ in is 'cause I know you didn't do anything yourself."

"Like I said before Logan, I came to Madripoor to atone for my past mistakes," Donna said evenly; only Jean's telepathy and Logan's heightened senses made it clear that she was still panicking.

Logan stared at her for a bit more before retracting his claws. Donna fell to the ground on her knees, taking in deep breathes of air.

"You knew about there being a baby," he stated simply as he looked at the woman lying before him.

"Yes," Donna said honestly, as she looked back up at Logan. "But I had no idea that Scream was going to be putting her kid into one of your team."

**I wanted it to be a surprise, **Scream said with a bit of glee; she almost sounded like a child who'd tried to prepare breakfast in bed for her parents.

"For the record? Bad surprise, 'partner'," Donna muttered before looking over the two X-Men who now had her at their mercy. "Symbiotes reproduce asexually once per generation as part of an automatic process; Venom did the same thing with Carnage. There's nothing I can do to stop it, and Scream would never have allowed her children to be killed… oh, and this was her _first_ birth; there are no others running around, I assure you."

"Which means Venom's now a grandpa," Wolverine growled, glaring at Scream with a slight smirk on his face that lacked even the remotest trace of warmth. "Think we should be sending out invitations to the baby shower?"

"We haven't seen Venom since the last time we saw you back on the Xenophage's ship, years ago," Donna retorted, glaring harshly back at Logan. "We'd prefer to keep it that way. We don't like how 'daddy's' fallen back into old and bad habits; the whole brain-eating thing is just too disturbing…"

"I beat you don't," Logan snorted, before a thought occurred to him. "Talking of Venom, how come Scream actually gives a shit about her kid; Venom said that symbiotes don't _care_ about family and stuff like that?"

"Mutation from being on Earth, I guess," Donna replied, shrugging slightly. "After all, the Carnage symbiote developed a whole bunch of obvious powers from being on Earth- the ability to solidify his costume, stuff like that- so my best guess is that Scream's 'mutation' involved a capacity to actually care about her 'kid'."

Despite himself, the mutant known as Wolverine nodded thoughtfully at Donna's words.

He hated to admit it, but what she was saying did make sense…

Glancing over to Jean for her opinion on this thing, Logan noticed that the red-headed mutant was now on a communicator- he'd been distracted by Donna and missed it activating- but she terminated the connection before he could hear who was on the other end.

"That was Sage," Jean said, as she glanced up at her teammate. "She just called to inform us of Rogue's location. She's with Carol right now."

"Rogue… and Carol?" Logan muttered, half to himself. "When has that combination _ever_ been good?"

Getting his mind back on-track to focus on the current issue, the clawed mutant reached out, grabbed Donna by her arm and pushed her forward, glaring at her back as she moved in front of him.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Donna snapped.

"You're coming with us, kid," Wolverine stated bluntly as he stared at the symbiotic 'detective'. "What happens to you next, all depends on your behavior. You and that thing of yours."

Donna's head was covered by her symbiote, and Scream had a not so pleasant look on her face. "It's SO nice to see you too," she said, glaring momentarily at Wolverine before she sighed and looked back at the landscape before her. "Now then, if you don't mind, perhaps we should get moving; I have a daughter to see."

As an X-Men, Jean had seen a lot, but with what she was witnessing first-hand, with the interaction between Scream and Donna, she had to wonder if Rogue wasn't already out of her mind. The younger mutant may have been used to having other people's personalities lodged in her psyche, but there was a distinct difference between having a dormant 'echo' of somebody persona and having an entirely new, active personality lodged in the back of her head.

Whatever the symbiote was like, Jean could only hope that the thing didn't take after its 'grandparent'; Rogue had enough psychopaths in her head as it was without having any more running around in there…

* * *

As Rogue launched her webbing at the nearest pile of rubble, she made a mental note to see about getting in some practice with her new powers as soon as possible; this current use of webbing was pretty basic, but until she had a better idea of what her strength level was now, she didn't want to start lifting anything.

Plus, the flames were putting her off somewhat; even as Carol dived into the blazing rubble that Rogue had just cleared a path through, the mutant was having difficulty retraining the suddenly instinctive desire to run and hide…

_Another thing I need to work on,_ Rogue mused to herself, as Carol flew out holding a dazed but breathing young woman in her arms.

"It's OK… you're safe now," Carol whispered soothingly at the young woman she'd just rescued, before looking up at Rogue. "Thanks for clearing the rubble, by the way; I could have done it myself, but you're definitely saving me time right now."

"Well, ya know," Rogue shrugged, indicating the webbing that she'd just 'detached' from her wrists, "Ah figure, Ah've got this power, Ah might as well… use… it…"

Trailing off, Rogue looked up uncertainly, her head turning as she felt… _something_…. begin to approach her.

"Rogue?" Carol asked, looking uncertainly at the mutant as the woman she'd just rescued began to hurry off down a nearby street towards the sound of an ambulance; both knew that the street in question was safe, so weren't overly worried about that particular turn of events. "Something wrong?"

"It's strange... I don't... I don't know what it is but..." Rogue muttered before thinking inwardly. _Would this be your 'parent', just out of curiosity?_

**Yes. She's very close,** the symbiote said to her; if it had possessed a face, Rogue was sure the thing would be grinning. **'Mom's' behind us, in fact.**

Rogue turned around slowly, seeing two of her old teammates there- specifically, Jean and Logan, both in their costumes- but then noting a second, unfamiliar figure, in the form of a red-haired woman standing in front of Logan as he glared at her back.

If that woman wasn't the 'mother' of the symbiote that was currently inside Rogue, she would be _very_ surprised…

Rogue's lips turned to a thin line.

"Everyone," she said, looking around at the other three heroes while staring at the new arrival. "Give us a moment, OK."

"Rogue…" Jean said, looking uncertainly at her friend. "You know we can't do that…"

"Give meh our privacy Jean," Rogue asked, looking over at her friend. "Carol can watch from the air, and yeh all could have people ready to strike on us in a minute if thing turn out bad."

Turning to look in Logan's direction, she looked slightly pleadingly at her old friend, hoping that he, at least could understand why she wanted so desperately to just have a few private moments with the woman who'd turned into what she had become now.

"Please…" she whispered softly.

For a moment, the mutant amnesic simply stared casually in front of himself, before he finally shoved Donna forward.

"Ten minutes," he said bluntly, before walking over to Jean. "Come on; let's go."

As Rogue nodded briefly in confirmation, the two X-Men proceeded to walk away from the two symbiote-'owners', as Carol flew rapidly upwards to keep an eye on the 'meeting' from the air.

That just left Donna…

Or rather, Rogue noted briefly, Scream, who had taken advantage of Rogue's distraction to take over from her host.

"Well now," the yellow symbiote said, looking at Rogue with an almost affectionate smile, "aren't you going to say hello now… _daughter_?"

For Rogue, she felt nothing but anger as she rushed over to the symbiote and struck her in the face.

"Ah _ain't_ your daughter!" she yelled, as Scream cradled her jaw and looked briefly in surprise at the mutant before her; evidently, she hadn't been expecting Rogue to pack that much of a punch right now.

"No… you aren't," she admitted, wincing slightly as she tenderly felt at her injured jaw. "But you _are_ her host; it amounts to pretty much the same thing for me."

"Who gave ya the right ta do this?" Rogue demanded, glaring at the woman who'd suddenly changed her life without her even knowing it.

"Whomever gave me the right to give birth," Scream said simply, standing up again. "If you had a child, would you just kill it? No. At least I wouldn't." Her face took on a serious look. "As a mother, I have to look out for my child; which, by the way, I blame this planet for; my 'dad' was perfectly happy to abandon us all. I cannot carry the child to term on my own. Once it is ready to leave me, I have to find a suitable host for my child, one that was strong enough to support my daughter… and, of course, _won't_ end up dying before my child has awakened."

Then, to Rogue's surprise, Scream looked almost apologetic for a moment.

"To be honest, the whole… me implanting you with my daughter?" Scream continued, looking at Rogue with an almost sheepish smile. "It wasn't _planned_ or anything; you simply happened to be walking on that street the day I was planning to 'give' my child to someone to host. When I saw you though, through Donna's eyes, I knew I had to have you be the host of my child, even if my partner would object. So I took control and followed you, and then when I was close enough, I just 'bumped into you'. My contact with you was simply to allow my child to enter your body and begin to 'gestate' into its own individual form."

Rogue simply stared at Scream as she processed what she was hearing right now. On the one hand, the fact that she'd only acquired the symbiote through an accident rather than a pre-meditated intention was _something_- at least she hadn't hacked off Venom and his ilk without her knowing it, but that didn't change the fact.

"And the reason yah're here in the first place?" she asked.

The symbiote retracted the head to show Rogue the host's face once more.

"I- and my name is Donna, by the way- am just trying to repent for past mistakes," she explained. "I'm not a super-criminal, nor do I want to be one; Scream and I just want to be left alone in this nation. We have got everything we could want here, we're content, and we're making our penance."

Over the years Rogue had gotten good enough at reading someone, and, for this woman, she knew, somehow, that everything was on the level.

This was not a lie.

Which also meant that the symbiote in her was actually benign…

Well, she _hoped_ it meant that, anyway.

**Do you still not trust me?** the symbiote in her head said tiredly, clearly somewhat let down about that part of their new situation.

…_Ah'm open ta trust now_, Rogue said, surprising the voice in her head. _Ah'm willing to see where this goes and let yah live in meh… but if yah burn meh and betray this trust Ah'm putting in yeh, then god help meh, Ah'll do whatever it takes to be rid of you, even if Ah have to die with you. Clear?_

After a moment's 'silence' in her head, the symbiote sighed. **Well,** she said resignedly, **at least we have the rules down.**

_Yeah,_ Rogue said, 'smiling' at the symbiote. _We do… Jade._

The symbiote 'blinked' in her mind. **Jade?**

_That's what Ah'll call ya,_ Rogue explained with a small smile, this one actually reaching her face. _If Ah'm going to trust you, then Ah need to start thinking of ya as a person instead of a thing, and a name helps. Don't like it?_

Suddenly Rogue could feel something that was warm and pleasant flowing through her, almost like she was feeling suddenly satisfied about something without knowing what she was satisfied about.

**I like it,** Jade said with a casual grin. **So, with that sorted out, can I have control to talk with mom?**

Rogue nodded, closing her eyes and the symbiote covered her from head to toe.

"Hello… mom," she said, smiling casually at the other symbiote.

Donna's symbiote re-covered her as well and she smiled. "Daughter."

"Oh, it's Jade by the way," the symbiote said with her hands on her hips. "Like it? My host gave me the name."

Scream shook her head. "I would have preferred to name you myself," she replied, before granting her 'child' a slight smile. "However, in this case, I think I'll make an exception."

"I don't think we hug. That's not exactly what our kind does is it?" Jade asked.

"Not really; even with my human traits, I'm not quite like that," Scream responded, shaking her head. "Still, we must think of something to do together the next time we meet as mother and daughter; now doesn't seem like the most opportune time to connect with one another, given that your host isn't quite… well, 'adjusted' yet."

"To say the least," Jade replied, a slight smile flickering along her sharpened teeth.

"Well, at least with a host like this, you're going to be doing many amazing things, my daughter," Scream said with a fanged smile. "I look forward to hearing all about them on the news."

Jade just gave a grin of her own before both her and Scream 'faded' off, leaving only their hosts. Rogue and Donna, standing in the alley. For a moment, the two of them silently stared at each other for a while, before Rogue simply nodded at the other woman.

"You're free ta go," she said simply.

Donna nodded, before reaching into a pocket and passing a white card to the southern mutant. "My business card, in case you, or your friends, do need to talk to me… or more likely, you or Jade want to call."

"How do ya know Ah will?" Rogue asked, as she took the card and studied it for a moment. "And why give it at all?"

"Just so you hero types can know where I am, now that you know I'm alive and not dead," Donna answered. "Like I said, Rogue, I _am_ trying to repent. As for how do I know you'll call?" she shrugged slightly. "Just a hunch."

With that said, she walked off, away from Rogue and back into the alleys. It wasn't long before Carol flew back down towards the X-Man, closely followed by Jean and Wolverine.

"You'll be glad to know that she was telling the truth," Jean said.

Rogue sighed. "Ah had a feeling that Logan would be paranoid enough to tell ya ta scan her."

"With symbiotes, there's no such thing as paranoid enough," Logan replied bluntly.

"I did enough to ascertain the truth," Jean reiterated. "She wants to repent. I say we respect that."

"So," Carol asked, looking over curiously at Rogue, "what are you going to do now?"

"Now?" Rogue asked, smiling slightly as she raised one arm in front of her, watching as the symbiote spread to cover the arm in front of her. "Now meh and Jade are going to start working on this partnership of ours."

**To Be Continued...**


	4. Volume 1 Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-men, they belong to Marvel. What do own is Jade. I'd like to thank my friend Marcus for his help with this story, as he has been a godsend with betaing. I hope you enjoy this story._

**The Rogue Symbiote**  
**By David Knight**

**Volume One: Discovery**  
**Chapter Four: The Decision**

"On the topic of that 'partnership'," Jean put in, as she looked uncertainly at Rogue, "did 'Jade' make it clear what the hell actually _happened _to your powers? I mean, has she just shut them down for good or what?"

"Ah…" Rogue began, and then stopped mid-sentence as a thought occurred to her. "Ah'm… not actually _sure_, ta beh honest. Jade said something about mah powers havin' been burned out after Vargas stabbed meh, and Ah definitely can't fly any more, but I haven't actually really _tried _to find out how serious the thing is…"

"Right then; if you want to answer that _particular _question, there's only one way I can think of to confirm or deny it either way," Carol said, pulling off one of her gloves and holding her hand out to Rogue. "Touch me."

Rogue blinked.

"Wh… what?" she said, looking in surprise at the other woman. "Are ya serious? You actually want me to touch you?"

"Want is definitely the wrong word," Carol returned. "Willing, yes; Wolverine's powers are a bit difficult to test, and Jean's are a bit too… wild… to be sure you could control them, so I'm your best bet if we want to know either way."

"That, Ah get," Rogue said as she went to pull a glove off only to see green/yellow shimmer leaving behind bare skin. She couldn't suppress her shiver. "That is going to take some getting used to."

**What is that? I mean, besides me, I gather**, Jade asked.

"Mah clothes changing like magic," Rogue answered as she touched Carol's skin with her bare hand.

Instantly, Rogue felt the almost achingly-familiar sensation of Carol's long-stolen strength and power spreading through her system, almost like old friends returning to a room they'd abandoned long ago…

Then, just before Rogue could remove her hand from Carol's before she drained too much once again, the process… stopped.

Rogue couldn't think of a better description than that; her hand was still touching Carol's, but nothing was actually _happening_.

"Huh?" Carol said, staring in confusion at their still-joined hands before she looked back up at Rogue. "What's going on here?"

"Ah… ah don't know…" Rogue said, staring in confusion at their hands, her mind barely registering the fact that she was able to safely touch someone at the shock that she was actually _able _to do that.

**Oh, that's me**, Jade's voice 'said' in her head, sounding slightly smug as she 'spoke' to her host. **Remember how I said that I'd need some time to study your powers to determine what had happened when Vargas stabbed you?**

"Yeah?" Rogue replied, nodding uncertainly as she removed her hand from Carol's, the better to focus on the current conversation.

**Well**, Jade continued, **after that little 'survey', I've managed to get a look at your power when it's 'off'- which is, admittedly, pretty much whenever you're **_**not **_**touching somebody other than yourself-, and I **_**think **_**I've got the hang of keeping it off even when you're touching somebody. It takes a few seconds to get it under control at the moment, of course, but give me a little time and I'll be able to turn it on and off whenever you want at a moment's notice**.

Rogue's eyes widened in hope.

"Ya mean… Ah can _touch_?" she said in wonder, staring at her hands in wonder. "Ah can actually _touch _again?"

**Well, I need to actually **_**be **_**here for that to happen- I wouldn't recommend trying it without me- but… yeah, you can **_**definitely **_**ditch the gloves from here on in**, Jade said, sounding like she would have been smiling if she'd had a face available to her at the moment.

"Right…" Rogue said, nodding slightly as she studied her hands, before she came to a decision and looked back at the others. "Can ya take me ta the hospital where the Avengers took Remy? Ah… ah need tah see him."

Once she'd made sure the man she loved was alright, _then _Rogue would start deciding what to do next.

* * *

Gambit laid flat on his back in the hospital bed he was in. He was tired, but he just couldn't shut his eyes and try to rest; whenever he did, he flashed back to that nightmare of his cherè, turning into a monster that ripped his throat out and laughed as he lay dying.

_I only hope they've gotten it out of her by now_… Remy thought to himself, just as he heard someone walking towards him. He looked around in the direction of the sound, blinking in slight surprise when he saw who the person was as she came into the light. "Chere?"

"I'm right here Remy," Rogue said to the Cajun, her ungloved hands moving to touch him... when they were suddenly grabbed hard by Gambit's own hands.

It didn't hurt her at all, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he had reacted as he had. It didn't make Rogue feel good in the slightest. "Remy, just what do you think you are doing?"

"We're touching, so why ain't I feeling drained?" Remy asked, feeling now how his earlier nightmare had turned into a prelude of this very moment.

"Jade's turned it off for the moment," was the simple answer he got from Rogue.

"Jade?" he blinked, confused for a moment before narrowing his eyes. "You mean the symbiote."

"I named her. Feels better that she has a name instead of being thought of as a thing, don't you..."

"IT IS A THING!!!" Gambit snapped, pushing Rogue away from him.

**... if it wasn't for me knowing just how much he means to you...**

_I know_, Rogue responded briefly, knowing what Jade was talking about; she HATED being called a 'thing' just because she wasn't entirely human.

Remy stared at the face of his cherè, frozen before she spoke again. "What is your problem?"

"I should ask you that question," Remy retorted, indicating our costume. "After everything Venom and Carnage have done, why haven't they ripped that thing from you cherè? It's a menace. A murdering alien. An absolute monster. I want it gone from you as soon as..."

"Ya selfish _idiot_!" Now it was Rogue who was snapping. "Are ya _that_ blind and untrusting ya're not even willing ta give it a _chance_?! Jade and Ah came to this agreement; she stays in mah body, and in return… Ah get what Ah have always wanted: control! I can touch people now Remy. Ah don't have to be like a leper anymore. Ah can touch people, Ah can hug them, kiss them, have sex with them. Hell Ah can do what Ah thought was impossible but could only dream about late at night: have children!"

"... so I am not what you want."

Rogue stared at him, indignant and disgusted. "Don't you dare. Don't you DARE play that card with me, Remy, or Ah _swear_ you'll regret it."

"You may think this is great cherè, but you will never be alone. We will never be alone," Gambit told her. "It's either it or me."

Rogue said nothing. In fact she stood there, eyes closed for a few minutes, until they opened once again. However, instead of Rogue's normal emerald green, they were topaz yellow. Her hair suddenly changed from brown with a white streak to emerald green with a light yellow streak. Her lips also gained a dark green sheen to them. Her eyes narrowed and her jaw became tight as her lips became a firm line.

"Care to guess who I am swamp scum?" 'Rogue' said, her voice lacking any trace of her traditional accent. "I'd call you a swamp rat, but that would probably be insulting to rats all over the world."

"The symbiote. You..." Anything else Gambit could have said was cut off by Jade clutching his throat, tightening her grip around it, not to the point where he couldn't breath, but just enough so that he couldn't speak.

"Do us all a favor and shut the hell up," Jade growled as she pushed his head against the wall. "To set the record straight, we have Jean, Logan AND Carol outside, watching us in case I turn out to be a bit too much like my dear old 'uncle' and 'grandpa'. Jeannie has been constantly probing both my mind and Rogue's to make sure everything is on the level. To put it in terms a jerk like you can understand, this has been a test... and you failed, Cajun. Miserably."

She glared into his eyes while wearing Rogue's face, seeing the hate in his eyes. "Oh, and don't you _dare_ look at me like _that_, you ungrateful bastard! In case you've forgotten, let me remind you: I saved your pathetic life! You would have died from being impaled by Vargas and your injuries from Khan if it wasn't for me! I saved your life and THIS is the thanks I get?!

"What do you think ? That it's alright if you get to have Rogue all to yourself, but the moment you find out you have to share her with someone, it's like the worst sin imaginable?" She rolled her eyes in disgust, "What a bunch of crap. Oh and by the way, if I was just like any other symbiote, oh wait sorry, you mean any other 'thing' right? Well, I would have ripped your heart out of your chest the very first time you called me a thing and ate it before it stopped beating! I would have taken complete control over Rogue's body, transformed its form and shape into the 'monster' that you think I am!"

She took a breath before speaking again, never breaking eye contact. "Instead I asked for her permission. She thought it would be better for people to accept me if when I took control of her in public or amongst friends, I simply… I dunno, change her hair color or something else just so that we can be told apart. Do you honestly believe that Venom or Carnage would ever go through THIS MUCH ACCOMMODATION with their hosts- no, wait, let me rephrase that; both aspects of those guys were both psychos to start with and they just made each other worse- do you honestly think they'd bother to be THAT KIND to an unwilling host?! Both those symbiotes tried to practically hi-jack Spider-Man _and _his clone against their will, but do _I _go that far? NO!!"

Remy had nothing to say to that. He simply hung his head. Suddenly, he felt his head lifted up and when he looked, he saw his cherè, the symbiote having receded from her face. "Ah forgive you Remy."

"... are you serious about this?"

"As a heart attack sugah."

"I can't accept this," Remy said, still sticking with his earlier statement, though now with different reasons. "I always thought, if we ever managed to _really_ get together, that it would be just… well, the two of us. You and me. I never thought..."

"That you'd have to share," Rogue said with a frown before it became a smirk. "Or had to be a daddy?"

"Dad..." Remy stuttered before Rogue put two bare fingers to his lips.

"Like Ah said; with Jade, Ah can have what Ah always wanted: Children... and Ah want them to be your children too Remy."

Remy stared at her for so long before giving out a bitter chuckle, hanging his head. "Ain't it always the way with us cherè? Just when we've almost made it to happiness, it gets taken away from us?"

"It's not being taken away. Just being tested again," Rogue said with a dejected sigh. "We're right back to where we started when mah powers went out of control; going our separate ways. Only difference is, now Ah'll never be out of control ever again; it's just that yah don't like the way Ah've _got _control."

"Where are you going to go?"

"Ah'm going to take care of things here in Madripoor first. Then, who knows? All Ah know for sure is that Ah..." she stopped and amended herself. "WE have some bonding to do."

"I want you cherè. I want you so much, but..." Gambit started to say when he was cut off by Rogue grabbing his head and laying on him the longest, most intense kiss he had ever felt in his entire life.

When it was over, she looked him in the eyes. "My name is Anna Marie."

Remy blinked. He blinked for a long time as he was stunned speechless by what he had heard. He then had a slight smile form on his face. "Anna Marie. You got one fine name cherè. Why'd you tell Remy now?"

"Same reason Ah kissed yah, swamp rat; to give ya something to think about," Anna Marie told him as she turned away from him. "Think about that Remy, and think about what we can have if ya can let go of your fear."

She walked out of that room, so glad she had turned around when she did.

She didn't want him to see her tears.

Whether or not he knew about the reaction his chere was having to his decision, the Cajun did know that he had a _lot _of stuff to think about…

* * *

Outside the room, Rogue glanced over at Jean, Logan and Carol, and sighed slightly as she looked at them.

"Ah knew he'd have trouble with it, but Ah didn't think it'd be _that _bad," she said, as she raised one arm in front of her, flexing her fingers as Jade covered her hand before 'retracting' back again. "After everything we've been through… tah just not be able tah accept this…"

"Hey, it's as Jade said; her uncle and her grandpa don't exactly have the best track record when it comes ta hosts," Logan said, jerking his thumb at Gambit's room. "Just because Jeannie can vouch for her doesn't mean that this Jade thing isn't going ta make a lot of people uncomfortable; after that whole thing with Carnage nearly taking over the Silver Surfer, a whole lot of people really started getting concerned about those things."

"Ah know, Ah know…" Rogue sighed, staring dejectedly at her new costume for a moment before she shrugged and headed for the door, only to be stopped by a light TK shield.

"And you're going… where, exactly?" Jean asked, looking critically at her friend as Rogue turned around to look back at the others.

"Uh… ta help with the clean-up; what else?" Rogue said, looking in confusion at the psychic.

"With you having recently gone through a serious de-powerment?" Carol asked, her hands on her hips as she glared at Rogue. "I'm not saying that symbiotes are weak, but you've spent the last few years packing the kind of raw strength that allows you to go one-on-one with almost every major powerhouse on the planet and walk away, even if you couldn't definitely beat some of them; based on what we've read about the average strength level of these guys, you're operating on only about a fifth of that strength right now, and you haven't had the time to get used to that. If you start acting on instinct right now, you're likely to drop something when you try to lift a greater weight than you can cope with, and then where'll we be?"

"Carol's right, Rogue," Jean said, looking apologetically at the younger mutant as she lowered her TK shield. "We don't doubt your willingness to help, but we have to worry about your ability to do so; with your current decrease in power, until you get a better idea of what you can and can't do, you're a potential liability."

"Perhaps I can be of some assistance in that regard?" a voice said from off to the side.

Turning to look in the direction of the voice, the three X-Men and one Avenger were only partially surprised to see the blue-clad form of Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four walking towards them; as with the presence of the Avengers, it would be a rare day when an alien invasion didn't attract the attention of the Fantastic Four.

"Doctor Richards?" Jean said, looking curiously at the scientist. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, Sue and Ben are helping out with the excavation work and Johnny's running reconnaissance with Iron Man and the Vision in case they missed anything, so I thought that now might be as good a time as any to drop in and confirm the rumours I'd been hearing," Reed explained, as he looked over at Rogue. "And, judging by your costume, I can see they most likely are. Another symbiote on Earth, I assume?"

Before Rogue could reply, the costume had moved to cover her head, and Jade was once again in control of the body.

"Yes, I'm a symbiote; yes, I'm related to Venom; and no, I'm not going to go all psycho on people like 'Grandpa' and 'Uncle Cletus' have," Jade said, effectively countering all of Reed's most likely statements before he'd even have the chance to speak. "Is that everything, or is there something else about me you'd like to be reassured about?"

"Well… as Ms. Grey said, knowing your physical limitations _would _be a useful thing to determine," Reed replied, nodding slightly at her as he spoke. "I did perform the initial studies on the symbiote that went on to become Venom; without meaning to sound arrogant, if anyone is qualified to determine what… you're… capable of, and how your gestation on Earth has altered your abilities when compared to other symbiotes, it's me."

For a moment, Jade simply stared silently at Mr Fantastic, until she nodded and retracted, leaving Rogue's head visible once more.

"Sorry about that; Jade likes tah make sure y'all get her side of things," she said, looking over at Logan, Jean and Carol by way of explanation before she turned back to look at Reed. "Though she does need to work on remembering to taking the 'subtle appearance look' when she wants to take over in public." She said aloud as if to make Jade feel a little embarrassed.

**Oops. Sorry. **

Rogue shook her head. "As far as the tests go, though, when you're ready ta go back ta New York, Ah'm all yours."

"Excellent," Reed said, nodding gratefully at her. "I'll have Johnny come and get you when we're ready to go; I just thought you'd appreciate some advance warning before he came along to 'collect' you, particularly given Jade's kind's traditional aversion to flame."

As Reed departed, Rogue turned back to look at Jean and Logan, a slight smile on her face as she looked reassuringly at her friends.

"Don't worry about meh; Ah'll manage," she said, smiling slightly as she looked at her two teammates. "Ah'll come back tah the mansion eventually, ah promise; it's just that… well, as yah said, right now it's probably best if Ah get a better idea what Ah'm capable of with this before Ah… well, come back."

"You're leaving the team?" Jean asked, looking anxiously at Rogue.

"Just for the moment; Ah'll come back once Ah've got this all sorted," Rogue said, placing a reassuring hand on Jean's shoulder before she glanced over at Logan. "Can Ah count on a visit from ya once I've got an address sorted out, by the way?"

Logan smiled slightly.

"You know it, darlin'," he said, nodding in confirmation at her before his grin faded slightly. "Just… let me wait until Ororo's back on her feet, OK?"

"Of course," Rogue said, smiling back at him. "Just so long as ya _do _drop in sometime, Ah don't particularly care about _when _ya do it."

* * *

_Meanwhile..._

"At least the whole place wasn't trashed," Donna said, shaking her head as she looked over her private detective's office after returning from her 'meeting' with Rogue. Having confirmed that everything important was still where it should be, she walked over to what appeared to be a wall, walked right through said wall, and found herself inside an elevator.

"If nothing else, at least the holographic camouflage is still functional…" she muttered to herself, before she looked up to the camera above. "Take me to Hell."

_Identity Confirmed._

Donna felt the elevator go down. It would take a few minutes so that gave her some time to address a simple question. "Okay. What's up?"

**Pardon? **Scream 'replied' inside her head.

"You have been quiet, dead quiet, for two full hours," Donna said to her partner. "You have _never_ been quiet for me for even thirty minutes. Just _what_ are you thinking?"

**Thinking that its better off that I take control right now,** Scream said to her host as she started to form over Donna's body. **I got this feeling the little ones aren't exactly being calm down in Hell.**

"Big alien attack, lots of bad guys to take on and kill for their repression, very little opportunity to get out and do it, guys like the Human Torch and Iron Man- with those sonic blaster things of his- flying around using their powers to their full extent…" Donna listed off as she started to get a headache just thinking about what the kids must be doing. "You're right; you're better suited to spanking them. Go have fun… though I _do_ hope that you still enjoyed speaking to your baby."

With that said, the symbiote spread from her body to cover her entire head, the sign that Scream was now running the show.

A ping was heard and then the doors opened. "On levels you wouldn't understand," Scream said deliciously as she walked through the doors into Hell- 'Hell' in this case being the remains of a Xenophage ship that had been buried here in Madripoor for over a millennium. Even though old, it was still carrying technology that outclassed most current Earth technology (Excluding that available to the metahuman community for obvious reasons; even those heroes who didn't possess geniuses among their number generally had access to at least some alien technology). It also was very useful in locating others of her kind… such as the five symbiotes she saw fighting amongst themselves down below in the main room of the ship, discovered over the years.

Oddly enough, it was a gender-biased group, but in reverse as far as symbiotes went. From what Scream knew from her genetic history- Venom, obviously, had never been interested in telling them much about their race whenever they'd met, and his was the only symbiote that hadn't spent its life on Earth-, her race always went after the strongest hosts. In other words, the males of a species are higher in the host food chain then females were.

Not in the case of her pack as there was only one lone male symbiote. A black colored man who was rather new to her pack and went by the name of Slade. He usually hung around to himself, actually looking more like Spider Man than a symbiote, as he preferred to take the non-tooth and tongue look.

_He might have something in common with my daughter_, Scream mused briefly; having met Jade, it was clear that her child preferred the non-tooth look, most likely out of her host's natural desire to look less obviously threatening unless she deliberately wanted to make an impression on somebody.

Despite his simple appearance, however, Scream had to be surprised by Slade; he was a natural first generation symbiote. She had come to classify symbiotes into different generations and if they were natural or earth born based on their color. Symbiotes that were of Venom's lineage had two or three color tones, not including the white of their eyes. All natural symbiotes were all one toned. Thus considering Slade's personality as of what she had seen, either the host, which she had yet to see at all, was exerting control over him, or he was like Venom, a 'defect' to her race's majority.

That was fine with her, of course. After all, they were all 'defects', as it were; none of them were quite what would have been considered 'normal' back where the symbiotes came from.

The other four were all girls of various ages with also varying personalities. Like for example, the bubblegum pink toned symbiote with a rather over voluptuous figure, who was currently in a claw fighting with long haired orange and green host.

_Rapture and Discord_, Donna mused, almost wistfully_. They never stop fighting at all._ Rapture used to be a girl from America named Amber Dayton, who had been sold as a young child to the sex slave trade. She was abused, violated, and made to look 'bigger' by her 'owners'. She had even contemplated suicide. Her symbiote she got from being used by a Yakuza Gangster, who happened to be a host to a symbiote himself, never guessing that his 'daughter' would come after him with bloodlust, kill his family and then him and his father. Donna found her living out on the streets, stealing and beating to survive. She took her in and gave her back her pride, and taught her how to use her anger and rage for her own survival. She considered Rapture to be like a surrogate daughter, and was perhaps a good part of the reason why Scream had come to like children and wanted to have an honest relationship with her own, rather than Venom's almost instinctive desire to kill Carnage.

Discord, however, was a head case. After a year Donna and Scream got little out of her. They weren't even sure what was the host and what was the symbiote any more. Hell they had never even seen what her host looked like, as she stayed symbiosed 24/7. She wanted to fight and kill people for something they did to her but had no idea why.

That left the twins, Jinx and Misfit as they liked to call themselves. They were practically kids- both only twenty-two years old-, but had gone through enough hell in their short lives. They were changed forever in New York when the symbiote mess came about. They were with their family vacationing from Europe, and had the bad fortune of being in JFK, getting on their plane when it happened. Symbiotes took the plane over and everything went wild after that, as the plane crashed into the ocean during the commotion. The two of them were stranded all alone on a deserted island for years until they were rescued. They did not however go completely insane, due to the symbiotes having bonded with them, however they were never the same as they were before their bonding. Their parents' dead, they left to live with their uncle and aunt in Germany, given a trust fund in their name until they turned twenty one. That was a year ago. They went jetsetting across the world in a yacht, taking advantage of people and robbing them of their money. They were the perfect little con artists.

Scream made sure their 'talents' were better suited to working together, with her, in her goal of gathering up all symbiotes that didn't have the whole 'devour humanity' mentality in their minds. Their only allies in a world that hated their own kind were each other and if they let petty differences get the best of them, like Rapture and Discord were...

"I don't care which of you started the fight," Scream said, her voice cutting through and getting everyone's attention, stopping Rapture and Discord's argument. "But it's meaningless. Especially since situation above, is now in the hands of the 'established supers'. So unless you actually WANT to expose us to the world, keep it down."

The young ones all kept quiet, except for Discord, who looked sulkily over at Scream.

"I want to _fight_…" the homicidal symbiote groaned.

Sighing in frustration- it felt like they'd had this argument a hundred times and they _still _had yet to get the point across to the other symbiote-, Scream walked over to the younger symbiote and slapped her across the face.

"Fighting _cannot_ be your life; how many times must I say that?" She saw Discord's head bowed… and in a gesture put her hands on her shoulders. "You want to know why you have these urges. Then listen to me and do as I have said for over a year. Sleep. Rest. And pray."

Discord simply sighed, prompting Slade to walk over to her and pat her reassuringly on the shoulder.

"I'll put her in her room," he said, looking up at Scream.

"Do that," Scream said, watching the two go off.

"Honestly, how is it the newbie and the only good looking guy happens to have a thing for the schitzo?" Jinx said, dejectedly.

"Look at it this way; at least he can calm her down," Misfit said, shrugging dismissively. "And what is it that you see in that guy any way?"

"He's just so brooding; its…_ dreamy_," Jinx said in a rather fangirlish way. Scream had to blink as she had never heard Jinx speak like that before.

Misfit let out a sigh. "She's been fawning over him for the last week and a half. Of course, _you_ were away on business, so you haven't really been able to watch."

"Just goes to show how much more we develop differently from our native cousins," Scream mused as she looked over Rapture, who had some wounds on her chest which were finishing up healing.

"So, what happened up top?" Rapture asked, looking curiously at their mentor/guardian.

"I met my baby and her host," Scream replied simply.

"Did you tell her about us?" Misfit asked their pack leader. She, along with Jinx and Rapture knew who Scream had picked, even when Scream's own host did not. They had all wanted to do something to take the child out of its host before it had fully matured, because they feared having an X-man playing host would only bring them the exact kind of attention Scream had wanted to avoid when she brought them all together.

Scream's own ultimatum made their opinions moot and pointless.

"...no," Scream said with a bit of sadness. "My daughter isn't ready to know about us yet. I'm enough of a concern to the human authorities, and her teammates were worried enough when they learned what had happened even after the telepath vouched for her; finding out there are _more_ of us around will cause problems to them. So for now, she doesn't find out."

She had a shark like grin on her face at the thought of the future. "But, given time, I'm _sure_ that will change."

She could just imagine how her little girl would turn out.

* * *

The 'little girl' in question was laying silent within Rogue's mind as they waited for the Fantastic Four to be finished with the Madripoor clean-up. She was alone. She was wondering now what would happen. She didn't think Anna Marie would betray her. They had a pact.

What now had to come forward was trust in one another.

A trust she hoped would develop, or else this symbiosis would not last.

**End Volume One: Discovery**


	5. Volume 2 Chapter 1

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. I know it's been a while since I put anything up here but I have had some new thoughts and hope to finish this last arc up. Also have my friend Marcus to thank for his input into this. _

_For this story we now really begin to venture into the direction of our favorite web head. As far as where Spidey's currently at in regards to this story goes, it's shortly after Spider-Man has dealt with the Shade- with some assistance from Doctor Strange-, and Peter and Mary Jane are still undergoing their trial separation. _

**The Rogue Symboite  
By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
Chapter One: Welcome to New York**

As he swung through the streets of New York, one web-line after another being launched out in front of him, Peter Parker groaned as he thought about all the recent events in his life.

_Great_… he mused to himself, as he launched a web-line onto a nearby flagpole and swung himself in another direction. _Just when I think I've got everything going at least _slightly _under control, Doctor Strange _has _to drop in with a warning_.

He knew it was unfair to blame the guy for what he'd had to tell him- after all, it _had _been his decision to leave that 'path' during his little visit to the astral plane, despite the Doc's warnings- but, given how much of his life had suddenly started to involve magic and all that all of a sudden, he felt that he was kind of entitled to be mad at Strange for telling him he'd have _more _stuff to deal with. As if the whole thing with Mary Jane wanting some time out after all that crap with her stalker wasn't bad enough, then he'd had to deal with all that crap from Morlun, Aunt May finding out his identity, that 'Shade' sucker…

Hell, after all that, he'd almost been grateful for his recent rematch with Doctor Octopus; at least that guy's abilities were based on _science _rather than the supernatural, to say nothing of the fact that he was a familiar bad guy, even if he _did _give him some serious grief whenever they went head-to-head.

And now here he was, back in New York, his wife still in Los Angeles working on some dumb movie about a guy with the powers of a _lobster_, having totally missed out on a lottery win because he'd been too busy to pick his numbers, and- according to Doctor Strange- he was going to get attacked by some mystical spider-wasp that wanted to kill him and (Apparently) use his body to lay its eggs.

About the _only _thing going right for him these days was the fact that he at least had a steady job now- the science teacher position at his old high school wasn't much, but it was at least something to help cover the bills when Jameson was being particularly tight-fisted with payment for his photos-, and given his occasional absences due to his Spidey duties, he wasn't sure how long _that _one would be working out for him.

_Once- just _once_- couldn't I get a _nice _surprise_? Peter groaned as he continued to swing along through the city streets, his eyes constantly on the alert for anything that might merit his attention. _A new ally, a new hero on the block, a new friend… somebody I could talk to about this whole situation _without _them getting worried about me or thinking they're useless_?

He snorted. _Yeah, right; and maybe I'll win the lottery with my _new _numbers this week_.

It was official; his life _perpetually _sucked.

* * *

This was fun.

For Jade, the idea of ripping opponents to shreds- while not _actually_ killing anyone in the process- was actually quite appealing, albeit primarily due to the fundamental urges in the darkest part of her mind that she was confident came from her 'grandpa' and her 'Uncle Cletus'; 'Mom' was generally more stable these days, so the killer instinct couldn't have come from her. So far she'd successfully vanquished every single training robot thrown at her through a combination of her own strength and her ability to create basic 'weapons' via the suit, similar to how Carnage was capable of solidifying his costume, although her creations remained for far longer than his did.

Admittedly, the part of her that was more Rogue than Jade despaired about the headaches that it would inevitably cause Reed Richards when the time came for them to recycle the robots, but he'd made it clear that he didn't mind too much, so that was all OK.

"I believe you need to up the AIs on these training bots, Doctor," Jade said with a wild grin, looking up to where Mister Fantastic was monitoring her from the control room of the training area; he'd specially modified the training room to put her though her paces, programming it with a 'toned-down' variation on the Thing's usual training program to allow for her lesser strength. "These things are going down _way _too fast for our liking; it's hardly even a _challenge _compared to some of the stuff Rogue's gone up against!"

"_I acknowledge that, Jade, but until you and Rogue have become more confident regarding your limitations, I don't want to hit you with anything too hard_," Mister Fantastic explained, nodding back at her, clearly grateful that her appearance was still relatively 'normal'. Jade had retained mostly the same look that she'd assumed after initially bonding with Rogue, but she had 'ditched' the long tongue and shark-like teeth, although she still retained a mouth of sorts to speak. Reed had, however, noted that she tended to revert to the traditional symbiote form when in simulations, as though she instinctively wanted to appear intimidating or frightening even when just dealing with robotic adversaries.

Clearly, she may not like to look monstrous in conversation with other heroes, but that didn't mean she should ignore what she was given; sometimes monsters got people to talk faster than flesh and blood humans.

And there was also the fact that she happened to slip into saying 'we' or 'us' from time to time as well as saying 'I'. It made Reed wonder who was actually in control when the Symboite was in its 'costume mode'.

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I appreciate your concern, but trust me; we're _fine_," Jade said, shrugging dismissively.

_"So who is actually speaking then?" _Reed asked.

Jade simply smiled wide. "We both are... right now anyway." Seeing as how there were no more robots left to destroy, it was time to stop. "Well, I think that's enough exercise for us both for today. Can you open the door for us both Doc?"

Without any further to say, the doors to the training room opened and Jade walked out of the room. She walked over to where she had left her gym bag, picking it up before she headed back into the training room. A green tentacle came from her left shoulder, went into the bag she'd dumped off to the side, and pulled out two Nestle Crunch bars before ripping off the wrappers and devouring them whole.

"Time for a little nap," she said, her voice possessing a dreamy-sounding tone as she chewed on the chocolate bars. "See you later, Doc…"

With that, the symbiote receded away, leaving one southern belle dressed in a dark green shirt and dark trousers shaking her head.

"Ah _swear_ she's going to make meh fat at this rate…" Rogue groaned, as she studied the chocolate bars in her hands.

"You _do_ understand that, given your lifestyle, you'd probably burn it off fairly quickly," Reed offered.

"Ah knew that accepting Jade as a partner was going to be weird going into this," Rogue started to say, tossing the empty wrappers into a trash can. "But Ah never expected her to be a chocolate freak."

"Technically it isn't the chocolate that she craves, but rather the chemical within it," Reed pointed out. "The only other source of it on Earth is within human brains-"

"Hence why Venom's a brain eating serial killer," Rogue groaned, feeling a headache again. "We've been over this, Reed; yah _don't _have tah repeat yourself all the time, yah know…"

"Sorry," Reed said, shrugging slightly apologetically before his expression became curious once again. "Uh… if you don't mind my asking, how bad is it, anyway?"

"Ah devour two boxes worth of chocolate of various types a week," Rogue replied, groaning as she glanced down at herself once again. "It's going to go all tah mah hips and thighs if this keeps up…"

"No, I meant, how bad is it with her?" Reed asked seriously. "I mean, in the entire time you've been here, we've never discussed the _psychological_ effect on you."

Rogue took that as a cue to take a seat on the edge of the training room, smiling slightly teasingly back at him.

"Ah didn't know you were also a _shrink_, Doc," she chuckled slightly as she looked at him.

"I'm not," Reed replied, shaking her head as he reached over to pull up another chair and sit down opposite her. "However, I do know enough to know that your mental well-being in a situation like this is important, as well as understanding how you feel about all of this."

Rogue took a deep breath to collect her thoughts, reflecting on the answer she was about to give, before she spoke once more.

"Before Jade, Ah could always hear whispers in the back of mah mind; pretty much echoes of all the people whose powers Ah'd absorbed over the years. Sometimes they'd be loud, sometimes soft- Carol was always the clearest of them- but Ah was never alone in my head. Since mah powers burned out and Jade bonded to meh, I've only absorbed four people; Carol when she offered tah test mah powers, you and your wife when yah wanted tah see how Jade affected mah ability to duplicate powers, and Sage, who Ah saw with Bishop just before I left with you." She looked seriously at him. "Ah don't hear any echoes from them. All Ah hear is Jade, and that's only when she wants to let herself be known."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and when she's got herself all over mah body…" Rogue continued, pausing for a moment to try and come with a suitable analogy. "Well, it's _me_ up there, but it's also someone else; kinda like two people in one." She shook her head, surprised by how she was talking. "Ah must sound like Ah'm a little crazy by now- speaking out with different pronouns and all- but then again, Ah feel more in control now than Ah ever did before."

"As long as that holds true, I think things will work out fine," Reed replied. "So... have you seen Johnny lately?"

Rogue had a sheepish look on her face; since she'd begun staying at the Baxter Building, the relationship between her and the Torch had been… awkward… to say the least.

"Don't get me wrong Doc," she said slightly sheepishly, "Ah got nothing _against_ Torchy, but it's just… well, Jade's got a thing about fire, and he's the Human _Torch_... not exactly best mix." She could remember when Johnny tried flirting with her after her arrival, but Jade kept telling her to leave or walk away; the symbiote was just too uncomfortable being around him, even when in the off mode. "That's something Ah'm going to have to work with on her."

"You aren't..."

"Irrationally afraid of fire?" Rogue finished for him, shaking her head with a slight smile. "No, but Ah feel _her_ fear of it, and, considering what can happen on the job, Ah gotta get her to break that fear, or at least control it in situations where Ah'm going to be dealing with things getting very 'hot'."

"Totally understandable," Reed said to her, curious about one other thing. "I am guessing by your recent exercise, you don't have any powers from anyone you've touched since your initial burn out."

Rogue shook her head. "It works how it used to still; Ah touch someone, have their powers for a little while and then goes away, only now with none of the lingering voices." Her first day here, Rogue had touched Reed and was able to stretch herself in ways she hadn't ever tried for a while, even when Jade was active, but it left her as expected. Same thing could be said for when Sue let her borrow her powers two days ago.

After nearly three weeks of shutting herself in the Fantastic Four's home, putting herself and Jade through their own paces, trying to become accustomed to what they could or could not do, she felt like she had reached the limit of what she could do here.

"Guess it's good as a time as any," she said, standing up and looking back to Reed, "Ah think now's the time for me to get going. Ah mean, Ah'm grateful tah yah for everything, but Ah can't stay in this building forever."

"Where do you plan to go?"

"Ah'll probably get a hotel room for the moment. After that Ah'll see if Ah'm even going to stay in New York," Rogue replied. "It's still a bit too close to home in some ways, and not sure if Ah want to be this close to my friends while trying to sort all of this out."

"I understand," Reed said, before stretching out his right hand far back, "Though before you go, I think you will need this," his hand came back to where it had been, only now it was holding a large package. "It's everything you requested."

"Thanks," Rogue said, taking the package. "Hoping it wasn't too much of a trouble." She opened it up to look over the contents; Social Security Card, Driver's License, credit cards…all under the name of Anna Marie Adler.

It was everything she needed to start her life over again.

Reed shook his head. "I think you deserved it Rogue, considering everything you've been through."

"You can call me by mah name if you like Doc; it is mah real name."

"I know that, now," Reed responded, unwilling to show how surprised he was- even if it was only slightly- at how casually she was being about giving out her real name now, after never revealing it until now. "I was just unsure about whether I call you by that, seeing as you yourself haven't gone by that name for a long time."

"No. No, Ah haven't," Rogue said simply, as if on reflecting on that before looking back to Reed, a kind smile on her face. "Thanks for everything Reed. Ah'll be see ya later probably."

"Take care of yourself," he said to her, holding out his hand. "Anna Marie."

Rogue took that hand, unable to describe how it felt to have someone call her by that name, other than that it felt good. "Same to you," she answered as she walked away, taking the next step towards moving on with her new life.

**To Be Continued...**


	6. Volume 2 Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. I know it's been a while since I put anything up here but I have had some new thoughts and hope to finish this last arc up. Also have my friend Marcus to thank for his input into this. _

**The Rogue Symboite  
By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
Chapter Two: Convergence**

For the third night in a row, Spider-Man was out and about, web-swinging through the streets of Manhattan in what he freely admitted was probably a pretty pathetic attempt to try and take his mind off Doctor Strange's apparent 'warning' for him, trying to reassure himself that the whole thing had probably been a coincidence. After all, it had been over two week now since his battle with the Shade and his little 'wandering' around the astral plane- a few of those days spent in Los Angeles trying to talk to Mary Jane while dealing with Doctor Octopus and his wanna-be impersonator-, and nothing had shown up yet; wasn't it possible that he'd just read that book sometime recently and forgotten about it until his subconscious chose to dredge it up to give his recent attack of free-floating anxiety something to focus on?

_God_… Peter groaned, as he landed on a nearby rooftop to stare out at the city spread out before him, chuckling slightly under his mask. _Listen to me; I'm starting to sound like a shrink_.

_Say_, he added mentally, _now _that's _an idea. Peter Parker, Psychotherapist to Super-Arch Villains_.

He could already imagine how that might go; him sitting in an office, casually slumped in a leather armchair, glasses on his nose as he looked at the green-robed, armor-clad form of Doctor Doom, lying on a leather sofa with his hands folded on his chest.

"_So, Doctor Doom_," 'Doctor' Peter Parker said, studying his notes before he looked back at the Latverian dictator, "_do you think that your name may have had something to do with your depressive personality, or did you have a_-?"

That particular amusing train of thought was cut off mid-sentence when his spider-sense suddenly blared up as though he was suddenly standing in front of a bomb that was mere seconds away from going off.

_What the_-? Spider-Man asked himself; how could somebody find him all the way up _here_?

"OK," he said, as he turned to look at whoever- or whatever- had just turned up behind him, "no fair trying to sneak up on a guy…"

As he took in the sight of exactly _what _had snuck up on him, he instantly reevaluated his original theory of his subconscious just playing an elaborate-yet-weird joke on him; the figure before him was _definitely _not your run-of-the-mill bad guy.

It was a female form with glowing blue eyes and totally black 'skin' and 'hair', 'her'- for lack of a better definition for the creature- 'hands' possessing only three long, sharp-'clawed' fingers and a small tube-like thing on the back of the wrist. 'Her' legs simply tapered down to a point, with no sign of anything that could be considered feet, and 'she' had long black insect-like wings on her back.

"_Little one_," she said, looking at Spider-Man as though he was little more than something on a plate. "_Little spider. So far from home. So far from your mother. Shathra smelled you on the other side. Followed the scent across the darkness. Little one. Little spider_."

* * *

Rogue was laying down on the bed of the hotel room she had rented out earlier in the day. She still couldn't believe how wealthy she was now. After finally taking care of the whole Destiny Diaries mess, she had come to learn that Irene had left everything that she owned under Rogue's name, and, given Destiny's 'knack' for knowing how to invest her money, everything that Rogue now owned gave her the wealth of a millionaire.

Hell, she could quit the superhero business if she wanted to right now and live off of what she had obtained from Destiny and never work another day in her life. She'd have enough money to do just that.

_Cept that's not how Ah am._ Anna Marie thought to herself. She had taken time to actually think of herself as Anna Marie lately. It was her birth name, and she was proud of it; it was about one of the few things she remembered being given by her _birth_ mother, rather than her adopted ones. However, ever since her mutation powers kicked in and she lost her ability to touch, she could never really feel comfortable thinking of herself in that way.

After all, Anna Marie was a normal girl who could touch everyone without fear of the consequences; Rogue was the girl who couldn't touch _anyone_ for too long without killing them.

_Where does the line between Anna Marie and Rogue end? _Anna silently reflected to herself._ How much am Ah of either one of them any more? The person I was born as and the person I was before..._

**Before I came along?** Jade asked, breaking the silence she had given**. Hope I'm not intruding; I just figured, with all of the deep inner brooding you had going on up top, you wanted some space to yourself for a moment.**

"It's appreciated," Rogue returned as she turned her thoughts onto the symbiote. "Yah know, Reed was right."

**Hmm?**

"We shouldn't be taking on what we can't handle," the former X-man said, flexing her fingers on her right hand. "Ah'm not as strong as Ah used to be, and even though Ah got some understanding of what these powers ya're giving me can do, Ah'm no expert and neither was Reed."

**Yeah well it's not exactly like you can go see an expert, **Jade commented, only for her 'face'- or at least the mental signals that would have controlled her face if she was in control right now- to fall as she picked up on Rogue's thoughts on that issue.

**Are you **_**insane**_**? **Jade 'yelled' inside Rogue's head. **You want to go to **_**him **_**for help?**

"Well, he IS tha only expert on you guys who _won't _possibly try to kill meh due to their genetic resentment of their offspring," Rogue pointed out with a slight smirk. "Ah think it's worth a shot."

**You **_**are**_** insane! **Jade exclaimed, trying to talk some sense into her host.** Even **_**you**_** have to realize he probably hates symbiotes! I mean, consider all the hell my Grandfather and Uncle Cletus put him and his clone through, and then- on a very small scale, admittedly, but it's still an issue- the one time Mom actually ended up fighting him!** **Do you honestly believe **_**he's**_** going to help you? If anything he'll try to hurt you or at the very least separate me from you because he'll think I'm just as bad as Venom or Carnage!**

"We're _going_ tah find Spider-Man, Jade," Rogue said firmly as she got up off the bed. "End of discussion."

**... fine. **Jade relented. **But when he's ripping me off your body, costing you the ability to touch **_**anyone**_** with full control, don't say I didn't warn you.**

"He won't do that," Rogue reassured her. "Ah promise you that." She walked until she stood in front of a full-length mirror, giving herself another once over.

**Checking out your hips?** Jade teased, apparently eager for anything to take the discussion away from Spider-Man. _**Please**_** tell me you aren't going to rage on me about the chocolate factor again now are you?**

"No," Rogue said, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she addressed the symbiote within her; it may have seemed a bit strange, but talking to her reflection at least allowed her to slightly pretend that she was talking to somebody more than just a voice in her head. "Ah just thought that maybe… Ah'd like to have some fun. Perhaps some… webslinging?"

**Well, that **_**does **_**sounds like fun…** Jade's voice commented casually inside her head, **But I doubt ****you want to do it just like that.**

"No, and Ah'm not wearing mah X-men outfit until Ah decide to go back the team," Rogue stated, folding her arms as she looked her reflection in the eyes. "We need a certain _look_ whenever ya're all over meh and we're in action. And, as yah've figured out already, the teeth and the tongue scare people; yah didn't do it when we were talking tah Reed and the others, and Ah'm glad yah've learned that, but Ah'd still appreciate it if yah didn't start creeping people out when we're in action."

**Isn't that the point?** Jade asked; if it hadn't been for the seriousness of the matter, Rogue might have smiled at the almost petulant tone of Jade's voice. She sounded like a child who was being denied a favorite toy. **I mean, we **_**want **_**the other guys to be scared of us when we're kicking their assess…**

"Yeah, we want the _bad guys _tah be scared of us; _not_ the innocent people Ah'm tryin' tah _save_ while Ah'm using ya," Rogue stated. "Not to mention that, given all the publicity Venom and that have gotten, it could cause some _serious _problems with the cops if they see meh; we've probably going tah have enough of _those _as it is without people thinkin' Ah'm an actual _killer_."

"Besides…" she added, looking critically at the mirror as she folded her arms, the better to make sure Jade understood what she was about to say, "more than anythin', it creeps ME out."

Despite herself, Rogue shuddered slightly at the slightly dim memory of Jade using her tongue to lick- actually lick- Vargas shortly before she went on to paralyze the sucker.

As pleasant as the second part of that memory was- after what he'd done to her and the others, Rogue had been _extremely _satisfied to see Vargas squirm- the first still made her want to shiver.

As though she had sensed her host's discomfort- which, given their bond, was certainly likely- Jade sighed in the mutant's head.

**... what do you suggest?** she asked, in a resigned tone of voice.

Rogue had given a decent amount of thought to that topic, but, eventually, she had decided to be simple. She reached out with her mind- trying not to think about how much this reminded her of those occasions where she'd acquired Mystique's powers- and started to use her symbiote to change her appearance. As she watched her reflection, the mouth, along with the horrid teeth and tongue vanished leaving her real mouth exposed. The clawed hands shifted back to normal.

Studying her reflection, Rogue nodded in satisfaction; her body was clothed in a form-fighting dark green suit that covered most of her head, leaving her hair exposed to the open air. The only thing showing that she _wasn't _doing that was her still-exposed hair, which remained the same dark green colour as the rest of her along with the yellow streak.

On that topic, she topic wasn't _entirely _sure about the colour of the overall costume…

**Let's not forget that this is MY body too**, Jade interjected from inside Rogue before the mutant could 'voice' her opinion on the colour; whether she would have spoken it or thought it was something she hadn't decided yet. **Don't even think of asking to alter my skintone to anything save different shades of green and yellow.**

"Fine," Rogue said, shrugging nonchalantly; overall, given the looks some of the symbiotes had gone for, green and yellow wasn't as bad a colour scheme as she could have been stuck with. "But _not_ the green hair," she added resolutely; she drew the line at looking like some freaky troll doll or whatever those things were…

**Well, your brown with the white streak **_**is**_** a dead giveaway if you don't to start attracting your old enemies before you're ready for them**, Jade pointed out nonchalantly. **Pick something else, Rogue**.

Rogue pondered that for a moment before her lips went into a smile.

"How about making meh… a red head?" she asked coyly, a part of her smiling at the idea. She wasn't sure precisely _why _she thought red hair was an apt choice. All she could clearly recall was that, somewhere among Spider-Man's acquired memories- what little she'd picked up from him during that 'Contest of Champions' the Brood had forced them into; Psylocke _had _pretty much cleaned out her mind of her last absorptions while she'd been possessed by the Brood Queen, but a few traces still remained-, there was a mental image of someone with red hair who was very important to him; she supposed a part of her felt that the distinctive colour might help attract his attention, if nothing else.

Besides, Rogue reflected to herself as she watched her hair color change from dark green to flame red, after all those times she'd been (On some level) envious of Jean's vivid red hair, which almost seemed to allow her to attract _any _man she wanted- Logan and Scott in particular had commented on the hair more than once, not that she'd ever _wanted _their attention in _that _sense, of course- it made a nice change to see what she'd look like with it.

Looking over herself now, Rogue smiled in approval; at least now she looked more like a regular costumed superheroine than a scary alien from horror films.

"Not bad," she said, an approving grin on her face under her new 'mask'.

**Not bad at all**, the symbiote replied, a satisfied tone in her voice. **So, you got a secret identity then, or are you going to go around calling yourself Rogue when you're like this as well?**

Rogue rolled her eyes behind her mask.

"If Ah did _that_, there wouldn't be a point to this whole change," she said, looking critically at the costume she was wearing again. After she thought for a moment about how it was working right now, how at the moment they both seemed to be like one person in a way at times, she quickly came to a decision. "How about we just use your name, at least for the moment?"

**Sure, that isn't going to be a problem at all. I mean, I normally don't look like this. Although… I do like my name showing up in papers**, Jade said, amused.

"Don't get a big head, girl," Rogue returned. "After all, we can't afford to have a huge ego, now, can we?"

**No we can't**, Jade said as she started to slip away, becoming more connected to Rogue's mind as the two were more interconnected.

With the issue of clothing and secret super-heroine name finally resolved, Rogue- _Jade_- opened up the window to her hotel room, studying the night sky of New York spread out before her. For a moment, she thought she'd take a bit of a stroll around the city- see about getting in some 'leisure time' before she started her search- but then shook her head.

After all, she was here to make contact with Spider-Man, and what better way to do so than by using her newpowers as soon as possible? She needed to get some practice in with them anyway; she might as well start with one of the obvious new 'talents' the symbiote had given her.

Besides, she _was _in his city; she might as well 'follow his example'…

"When in Rome, we should do what the Romans do," Jade said with a chuckle, noting that, once again, host and symbiote seemed in agreement; the symbiote found the idea of webswinging preferable to just walking around. Even if it wasn't really webbing, but actually an extension of the symbiote created to mimic the effects of webbing, she was going to call it webslinging and what she shot out of her hands to do it webbing; if nothing else, it made the whole process run more smoothly in their minds.

Raising her left hand, she launched webbing from the top of her hand towards a nearby building, grabbed onto the line as soon as it attached, and launched herself into the air to begin her first ever webswing.

Even for a woman who'd spent most of her life for the last few years capable of solo flight, the experience was incredible…

At least up until the point where Rogue suddenly found herself falling towards the ground; she'd released her grip on the webline in an attempt to fly, momentarily forgetting that she couldn't do that any more.

"WHOA!" she yelled, launching another webline and swinging back up only a couple of dozen metres above the street below. _Could yah let me KNOW when Ah'm doing that, Jade?_

**Hey, instincts aren't an easy thing to overrule, Rogue**, Jade 'said' apologetically. **Your body thinks it can still fly, and it reacts accordingly; I can't just dive in and **_**stop **_**that, you know**.

_Work on it_, Rogue said grimly, her mind once again focused on the task of swinging.

If she'd needed any further reminder that she was doing the right thing by coming to look for Spider-Man for help, that little accident had just proved it; she could _not _afford to make those kind of mistakes when lives depended on her…

* * *

Staring up at the woman in front of him, Spider-Man rolled his eyes as he tensed himself up in preparation for a fight, even as he tried to come up with an alternative way of dealing with this problem; he'd rather _not _have to immediately get into an undue fight unless he had to.

"Look," he said, staring anxiously at the black woman- apparently called 'Shathra', if that 'Shathra smelled you' comment meant anything-, "I know why you're here, but there's no reason for us to fight. I don't buy into this whole "natural enemies" thing… people have a choice, they have free will-"

"Shathra not people," Shathra stated, staring casually at him.

"OK, well, yeah, there is that-" Spider-Man said.

"Shathra not fight," Shathra stated once again.

Behind the mask, Spider-Man nearly sighed in relief; at least _that _sounded encouraging.

"There, you see?" he said, nodding gratefully at her. "It's-"

"To fight needs two of equal power," Shathra continued.

Despite his usual 'pun-for-every-occasion' attitude, the web-slinger nearly swore at that comment; _just_ when he thought he'd be getting out of this one without having to hit somebody, the crazy mystic spider-wasp-lady _had _to say something like _that_…

"With you, Shathra will play," Shathra continued, staring at him as though he was just something on her plate- which, the wall-crawler supposed, was technically accurate if Doctor Strange's information about her final goal had been correct.

"Until she is bored," Shathra added, still staring at him. "Then Shathra gives you to her children."

_Yeah, like _that's _going to happen_, Spider-Man mused as he stood up.

"Sorry, not interested," he said casually, as he launched a web-line and began to swing away. "I've got places to go, things to do, credit cards to overcharge-"

"No," Shathra said simply. "Stay."

As soon as the last word had finished, a dart suddenly severed the web-slinger's web-line, sending him plummeting towards the ground; even with his spider-level reflexes, he only just managed to adjust his fall to avoid hitting a nearby construction site.

"OK, now-" he said, as he bounced off the top bar, "you're starting-" he continued, as he vaulted off another bar, "to annoy me," he finished, as he landed on a completed floor, his spider-sense blaring as Shathra landed in front of him.

"Look," he said, as he stared at her, "I think I see the problem here. You're one big ball of instincts, and you have to follow them; I get that. But that doesn't mean we have to-"

"Talks too much," Shathra said simply.

With that, she thrust out at him with one large claw-like hand; even with his uncanny speed, Spider-Man was barely able to dodge the blow that felt like it would have taken his entire arm off from the shoulder onwards if it had actually connected.

"OK, I tried," he said grimly, as he turned to glare at her, trying not to show just how much her attack had hurt him. "But if that's the way you want it-"

With that he leapt towards her, lashing out with his feet to kick her in the chest even as he finished saying "-you got it."

As he struck out at the figure before him, the web-slinger tried not to think too mucha bout the fact that he was hitting a woman- something that, in his entire career, he'd never managed to be entirely comfortable with doing, even when he was totally up against the wall and had exhausted every other option available to him.

Then she threw another blow in his direction, forcing him to vault back before she pounded him into the ground, moving at a nearly impossible speed, serving as a clear reminder that she wasn't human and that he was _going _to be in trouble if he didn't back as hard as possible.

"You know what your problem is?" he said, as he grabbed at a nearby iron girder; judging by how she'd reacted to his earlier kick, he somehow doubted that conventional punches were going to do the job right now. "I wear a spider-costume because it's a nod to where the power came from. It's a role. But there's a difference between wearing the colors and _playing _the part-"

Mid-sentence, he stood up and struck Shathra with the bar, sending her flying back into the steel framework of the as-yet-uncompleted upper levels of the building.

"-and letting yourself get _buried _in the part," Spider-Man finished, as he put the girder down, jumped up into the air, and began to web-swing away once again.

She may be dangerous, but he'd learned a long time ago that it was stupid to go up against somebody you'd just met, when you had no idea what they were capable of, until there were innocent lives at stake (At which point it became necessary while still remaining a bit stupid). His main goal right now was to figure out what this 'Shathra' chick was capable of, how fast she could move, how fast she could recover from a beating like that-

His spider-sense blared up once again.

"Nuts," he muttered, just in time to feel a sudden impact as Shathra apparently collided with him from behind (It was official; he _really _needed to attract the attention of less people who were capable of flight when all he could do was swing), sending them both hurtling down the street at an increasingly rapid rate. He was just about to try and launch a web-line and taking his chances by trying to swing away rather than allow himself to hit whatever Shathra was going to crash him into, something struck Shathra in the side, leaving him falling back towards the ground as Shathra and her new attacker flew away from him.

_What the _Hell…? Spider-Man asked himself, as he landed on a nearby wall and stared after his adversary and her new attacker; all he could make out of the new arrival was a green-and-yellow costume and what looked like a web line of some kind.

_Who was _that? he wondered in confusion.

* * *

For a moment, as she flew through the air, Shathra was momentarily off-balance, unable to fully process what had just happened to her and how she'd lost her grip on her prey.

Even as she flew, however, she was breaking out of the sudden grip of her attacker, flying upwards and away as her foe spun through the air, in a manner that reminded Shathra of her true prey, and landed on a building.

Looking in the direction of her new foe, Shathra blinked- if such an action was possible given her apparent lack of eyelids- at the figure now standing on the building before her, dressed in a bizarre green-and-yellow costume, arms folded as she stared grimly up at Shathra.

"Sorry to butt in like that, darlin'," the figure stated, its mouth turned up in a slight smirk as she studied Shathra, "but the spider and I need to talk a bit, and you _don't _look like you've got his best interests at heart."

"_Little impostor seeks to protect the spider_?" Shathra asked, staring critically at the new arrival. "_Little fake… little copy… little _alien-"

"Oh, like _you're _from around here yourself?" the figure retorted, glaring back at Shathra. "You can just call me Jade; consider me your alien ass-kicker until Spidey gets back in the game."

**To Be Continued...**


	7. Volume 2 Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. I want to thank my friend Marcus for sticking with me on this one._

**The Rogue Symboite  
****By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
****Chapter Three: First Contact**

As she/they stared at the black-clad figure before her/them, both Rogue and Jade found themselves wondering who the _Hell _they were facing right now. Based on the few genetic memories that Jade had acquired from Spider-Man via her 'grandfather's' temporary bond with him, she was fairly confident that this woman wasn't anyone he'd encountered prior to the Secret Wars, and based on what Rogue had read about Spider-Man's battles in the newspapers- albeit always corrupted by that Jameson guy's overly irrational dislike of the guy- she didn't seem to be somebody who he'd faced recently.

_In other words_, Rogue groaned in their head, _we're up against an unknown enemy, with equally unknown powers, and we have little real idea about what we could do to her with _your_ powers, not to mention having _no_ idea about what she's even doing trying tah kill Spidey in the first place?_

**Ah well**, Jade mused, baring her claws as she studied her foe, **she seems tough; at least this makes for a decent practice.**

Before Rogue could say anything to that, Jade had sent them leaping up at their new opponent, slashing at the creature's face before she launched a powerful kick at the thing's chest. As Shathra 'stumbled' back from the force of the attack, Rogue/Jade landed back on the roof, preparing to leap back up to tackle her new foe…

Only to fall back to the ground mere inches away from her as Shathra flew upwards; she'd once again momentarily forgotten that she couldn't fly any more.

_**Crap**_**!** Rogue muttered to herself, as Shathra began to move to fly away from her. _C'mon, Ah've got access to at least _some_ of Spidey's memories… Ah can do this… he must have _some _kinda trick he could use in this situation…_

Before she could worry more about that particular issue, a red-and-blue form swinging from a web-line collided with Shathra, sending her flying backwards as he landed on the rooftop beside her.

"OK," Spider-Man said, looking curiously at the new figure, "you are…?"

"Call me Jade," she replied casually, deciding it would be best if she spoke right now; at least her lack of Rogue's accent would prevent him recognizing them until they were ready to introduce themselves. "I'm here to help."

"Ah," Spider-Man said, shaking his head slightly as he looked at her. "Look, I appreciate the offer, but-"

"DOWN!" Jade yelled, grabbing him and pulling him to the floor, avoiding the spikes that were fired upon them.

"OK…" she muttered, looking over in Shathra's direction as she stood up, "it's official; I _really_ hate this freak."

"_Little fake can't do anything_," Shathra scoffed, as she turned towards Jade once again. "_Shathra bored with you now; wants to see you _gone."

With that, she leapt for Jade once more, not expecting for her new opponent's hair to come- _literally_- alive, grabbing at her wrists and holding her in position as the spider-wasp strained to reach Spider-Man.

"How about I reacquaint _you_…" Jade growled, raising her arms and firing her own webbing at the creature as her seemingly sentient hair thrust her forward, "…with the concept of _gravity_?"

Shathra never stood a chance; using her hair, the webbing, and all of her strength, Jade managed to force the creature to come crashing down to the ground with as much strength as she could exert (Rogue privately regretted that it wasn't her old strength; if she'd been packing her Kree-based powers from Carol this thing would probably have gone down from that punch alone).

Unfortunately, the result, though managing to ground Shathra for the moment, was clearly still not enough, as Shathra swiftly got back to her 'feet' (Assuming you could call those tiny thin things on the end of her legs _feet_), clearly still conscious and looking very angry.

"O-kay, _that _sucks..." Jade muttered, her hair letting go of her enemy as it returned to its normal length and volume.

**I love having inherited this trick from Mother**, the symbiote reflected, as Shathra glared resolutely at the two spider-powered heroes before her.** Definitely comes in handy, especially if I make it so that the hair could come to be formed like daggers...**

_Think about ways to play with our hair __**later**__, Jade; we've got the bad guy coming for us right NOW!_Rogue's voice shouted to her symboite, forcing her to remember that Shathra wasn't finished by a long shot.

"Uh… look," Spider-Man said as he turned to Jade, his mask hiding his own reaction to whatever he felt when he saw her pull her hair trick, "much as I appreciate your help, we're not going to win this way; we need to change our…"

He paused for a moment to grab Jade and haul her up into the air just as Shathra launched another 'stinger' at the two of them, vaulting over the edge of the building as he continued to speak.

"…_tactics_!" he finished, as the two of them landed on the ground several stories below; only Spider-Man's agile reflexes and Rogue's own symbiote-enhanced durability stopped the fall from being just as damaging as Shathra's attack would have been.

"Uh… don't suppose you've got a plan of action _beyond _just running away, Spidey?" Jade asked, after she'd regained her footing and risked a glance at the sky; Shathra wasn't clearly visible yet, but her glowing eyes still stood out against the starry backdrop.

Glancing around, Spider-Man remained silent for a moment, until he smiled as he saw something behind them.

"Actually… yeah," he said, before he took off for the subway entrance behind them. "Follow me!"

**God, I hope he knows what he's doing**… Jade mused briefly, before she charged after him, Shathra's wings already visible as the black… _thing_… hurried along behind them. Hurrying down the stairs to the station, subsequently vaulting over the turnstile- Jade smiled slightly as she heard Spider-Man apologize for the lack of a ticket on the grounds that his wallet was in his other suit- before she followed him, watching in confusion as the web-slinger dived into a nearby subway car with relatively few passengers.

**Why is he doing something so stupid?** Jade groaned inwardly. **There's no**_** way **_**Shathra won't realize**…

She paused mid-sentence, registering the faint sound of laughter coming from the back of her mind. **Anna Marie?**

_Sorry; Ah'm just reminded of a certain cartoon at the moment,_Rogue chuckled, opening her mind to Jade for the exact reason.

Jade kept the laugh inside, just in case Shathra heard it, but she had to admit…

It _was_ kind of funny.

Before that thought could distract her any further, she leapt into the carriage to join Spider-Man, waiting as the train pulled away with no apparent attempt to halt their progress from outside…

Then Shathra appeared at the window, her eyes blazing brightly in the dark light of the tunnel as she stared grimly at the two of them.

"_Little spider and the little fake thought they could hide_," Shathra said, her voice somehow audible even over the roar of the train as it hurtled down the tunnel. "_But Shathra sees the spider, Shathra knows it, knows __**all **__about it, because she can __**smell **__it, she can_-"

"Oh, Shathra?" Jade asked, pointing in the direction the train was traveling as the motivation behind Spider-Man's actions finally occurred to her. "Check _that _out."

Turning, Shathra was just in time to see another train hurtling back down towards her, far too close to her for her to escape it no matter how fast she was.

But even as the train hit her, Spider-Man was unable to shake the faint whisper, that seemed to have been only in his head, as Shathra vanished away down the tunnel…

"_She can smell Parker_…"

As Shathra vanished down the tunnel on the other end of the train that had just passed them, Jade glanced over at Spider-Man just in time to see him shake his head briefly, as though criticizing himself for something, before he folded his arms and turned to look grimly at her.

"OK then, now that we've got _her _out of the way, care to explain who the _hell _you are?" he asked grimly, as he studied her long claws and large white eyes. "'Cause I gotta say… your appearance so far? Really raises a _lot _of questions I'd like-"

"Look, can we talk about this _off _the train?" Jade said, as the train halted at the next stop. "We've got a lot to talk about, and I really _don't _think this is the right place to be saying most of it."

As the door opened, Spider-Man sighed and leapt out of the carriage, followed closely by Jade. Mere moments after they'd left the carriage, the two of them had vaulted over the ticket machines, leapt out of the subway station, and, using a couple of web-lines, had swung their way up to the top of a nearby building.

After taking a quick glance around himself to make sure nobody else was there, Spider-Man folded his arms once more and turned to glare at the green-and-yellow clad form of this strange new arrival on the costumed superhuman scene.

"OK, we're alone now," he said, looking grimly over his new… he wasn't sure what to think of her as; she'd acted friendly, but her powers hinted at an origin he had a less-than-pleasant history with… as he walked up to look her directly in the eyes. "First things first; you _are _kinda related to a certain black-skinned ex-journalist who thinks it's fun to eat brains, right?"

"Venom?" Jade said, shrugging dismissively. "Yeah, I'm his grandkid, but trust me, me and my host do _not _see eye-to-eye with him on… hell, _everything_. Oh, and I'm not Carnage's kid, in case you were wondering; I'm Scream's."

"And that's meant to be _encouraging_?" Spider-Man retorted, leaning in to glare directly at Jade's 'eyes'. "Who's the host anyway?"

"Well, that's… _kind _of why I'm here," Jade replied, smiling casually back at him. "See, my host and I… we need your help to deal with this; she went through a bit of a de-powerment shortly before I took up residence here, and she figured you're the best qualified to help her-"

"Back up a minute; de-powerment?" Spider-Man repeated, raising a hand to look in confusion at the green-clad woman before him. "As in, your host _had _powers before you ended up inside her? Who is she?"

For a moment, Jade paused as she stared at Spider-Man, and then, with a brief nod, the figure's green mask and red hair vanished, leaving a familiar face with brown hair and a white streak at the front.

Spider-Man blinked in shock.

"_Rogue_?" he yelled, looking in shock at the sight before him. He hadn't worked with this particular member of the X-Men very often, of course- indeed, on their last one-on-one meeting she'd nearly drained him and the other winners of the Brood-arranged 'Contest of Champions' dry while under the control of the Brood Queen- but on those few occasions when they had _worked _together without ending up accidentally fighting each other, he'd generally liked her; indeed, given the nature of her powers, he'd often felt rather sorry for her.

For _her _to be under the control of a symbiote…

He wasn't sure whether he should be relieved or terrified that he was dealing with somebody he knew personally this time around.

"Yeah, Ah know; bit of a shock, ain't it?" Rogue replied, smiling slightly as she looked back at him. "Picked it up when me an' some of the other members of the team went on this search for the diaries of one of mah adopted mothers, Destiny; woman could see the future, we wanted tah find her diaries and see what we could do with them. Tah cut a long story short, Scream chose me as a host for her kid when she saw meh on a street, and, when Ah got stabbed by this alien warlord trying tah open up a portal for a bunch of invading aliens, Ah woke up like this with all mah old powers burnt out from the damage Ah'd taken."

Shrugging casually, she flexed her shoulders briefly, and her new outfit vanished, leaving her in her pre-X-Treme X-Men outfit as she looked at Spider-Man. "Anyway, net result is, Ah've been working on some combat basics with Reed Richards ever since Ah got this thing, but Ah'm still working on mah limits an' getting' used tah mah new powers, so Ah figured…"

She shrugged. "Well, after the other symbiotes- who'd probably try and _kill _meh, so they're right out-, who's better qualified tah know what these things are capable of than you?"

"Ah," Spider-Man said, before he shook his head. "Work on it on your own; I'm not interested."

Rogue blinked.

"Excuse meh?" she said, staring at him. "Ah come all this way, and you're just saying 'No'? Spidey, Ah need _help_-"

"My relationship with symbiotes has typically featured them trying to either kill me or control me; I'm not in the mood for dealing with another one," Spider-Man said grimly as he launched a web-line. "I'm sorry, Rogue, but I've got enough going on in my life right now; I don't need _another _worry on top of everything else."

With that, he turned around, gripped the web-line tightly in both hands, and swung away, leaving Rogue staring after him.

"... don't even say it," Rogue muttered to the smug presence in her head.

**Say what?** Jade asked with pride in her voice.

Shaking her head, Rogue willed the symbiote back to the form she had before. Shooting a webline, she started to make her way back to her hotel room. Ah get some sleep, and think about how to work on this in the morning. Cause this problem isn't going to go away any time soon.

* * *

Spider-Man may have took off quickly, but as soon as he had put distance between him and Rogue, he intentionally started to take the 'scenic route' as he putting. Eventually he ended up arriving at ledge that held Bruce the gargoyle. He stood there, staring at the gargoyle, all in silence until finally, he sharply spun around and slammed fist into the nearby wall. With the amount of force he behind that punch, he could see the fracture in the wall.

"Well, that could have gone better," he hissed, angry at himself for coming off the way he did. He sounded like a heartless bastard. "'Work on it on your own; I'm not interested.' Seriously, Spidey; _that's_ the best you could tell her? I've been more sympathetic to the Rhino for crying out loud!"

It wasn't that he didn't know what it was like having one of those things on you, so he could understand why Rogue would seek him out, and he could have definitely phrased it better if he had taken the time to just think about it…

But at the end of the day, the truth was the truth; he was simply not in any position to take on something like that. _How can I possibly help someone come to terms with something like having a symboite when my own life is crumbling down all around me?_

And now there was that crazy spider wasp chick. This one gave him the definite creeps and it sounded fairly clear that she/it knew who he was.

"There are times when my life can just suck," he muttered with disgust and frustration. "First MJ ditches me to fill a movie about a guy with the power of a lobster... a lobster! I mean come on, who the hell is going to even watch a movie about a guy with a lobster powers? And what is he supposed to do, save people with his big sharp lobster claws?"

"But no that's not even what is really bad here. What's really bad, is now I gotta deal with the granddaughter of the living costume that has nearly tried to assimilate me and has since made it its life goal to make my life a living hell and has succeeded by spawning offspring and now I gotta deal with this!" he snapped, utterly exhasperated. "And Rogue, I mean, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders. Why would she be acting the way that she was. I mean she was calm, in control, normal... well as normal as one could possibly be with a symboite bonded to you. I mean, I don't get it Bruce! How could she possibly be alright with it! What she possibly have to gain from it that she doesn't have from the X-men?"

Bruce's silence was deafening, but then that was also the point of it. He was Spidey's sounding board. To let him vent and get it all out so that he could think calmly. The truth was, he knew nothing about Rogue's situation. He didn't even bother to find out. The odds of this symboite being benign were, in his mind, slim to none. On the off chance that was, just was, that rare one in a million that it was going to be nice...

_No. I already burned the bridge and I'm already burning out for now. I should get home and get some sleep._ He finally decided as he fired off a webline. As he webslinged, he told himself in the end, everything was going to work itself out.

Too bad he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

* * *

Shathra was in the shadows of the subway, plotting how she should get the spider's attention, while not having to deal with that fake. While she could easily dispose of it, it was irritating and a distraction.

Seeing an attractive human female on a poster did give her an idea.

"New kind of play now," she said, her body shifting its appearance in accordance with her latest revelation. "New kind of play…"

**To Be Continued…**

_Author's Notes: For those who don't know what the 'Contest of Champions' mentioned here is, it was a contest set up by the X-Men enemies the Brood, who posed as a benevolent race willing to give Earth advanced technology if Earth's heroes competed against each other in various contests. Infesting Rogue with a Brood Queen, they intended to have her absorb the powers of the winners of the various 'groups' of contests and thus become the most powerful being in the galaxy (The winners in this case being Captain America, Gambit, the Hulk, Thor, Jean Grey, the Scarlet Witch and Spider-Man), but the losing heroes managed to band together under Iron Man- who'd realized what was happening earlier- and the Queen was driven out of Rogue thanks to the actions of Carol Danvers and Kitty Pryde (Both of whom had been separated from the other heroes from the start of the Contest as the nature of their powers made them unsuitable to be used as Brood hosts)_

_For all of those that have waited patiently for this, I will tell you that the remaining chapters aren't going to take nearly as long to post as it did to get this one up._


	8. Volume 2 Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. I want to thank my friend Marcus for sticking with me on this one._

**The Rogue Symboite  
****By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
****Chapter Four: Second Strike**

The next day found Rogue lying on her bed in her room at noon, staring up at the ceiling in frustration, trying to figure out what the hell she was going to do now. All her plans to learn how to use her powers, all her ideas about how she'd cope outside of the comfort and familiarity of her fellow X-Men, she'd pinned them all on having Spider-Man's help in learning about her new limitations.

Now…

She groaned in frustration.

It was official; without Spider-Man to help her, she was _totally _stuck on what she could do next.

**I **_**told **_**you he wouldn't want to help us**, Jade pointed out, sounding almost smug in her head. **Honestly, after everything he's been through because of my kind, I'm just surprised he didn't try and attack us anyway; he's**-

_A good guy who knows that a single member of a species isn't going tah represent what the entire species is like_, Rogue interrupted Jade; even after Spider-Man's rejection of her request for help, she wasn't going to have Jade insult a guy who just wanted to do the right thing with his powers. _Look, if he thought Ah was bein' forced tah do anything by you, he'd have tried tah fight us; as it is, he's just a bit… uncomfortable about it because of his history with your 'relatives'- which, tah beh honest, Ah can't say Ah blame him for. Give him a few days, and maybe Ah'll try again._

**And in the meantime… What**? Jade pointed out critically. **We just sit around here all day and try and figure out some **_**other **_**strategy for dealing with me hanging out in your head?**

_That's one option_, Rogue admitted as she sat up and reached for the TV remote. _In the meantime, Ah'll check the news; maybe there's somethin' about the fight last night._

As the screen initially turned on, Rogue was initially disappointed; while she was on CNN according to the hotel's channel listing, the woman on the screen wasn't anyone she recognized as a newsreader, suggesting that she was here to give an interview about somebody, and she really wasn't in the mood to hear something about someone _else's _personal problems when she had enough of her own.

"-_two, almost three years ago that I became Spider-Man's lover_."

Rogue froze.

That woman did _not _just say what she thought she'd said…

_OK_, she thought grimly to herself as she stared with renewed intent at the screen, _this__**can't **__be good_.

"_He has… well, I suppose the term would be an insatiable appetite for sex_, the woman on the screen in front of her continued; she had dark hair and was wearing a tight blue top and jeans with small glasses on her face. "_But that's often the case with men who are trying to compensate for something. Where I became disillusioned, and when I decided to go public, was when I realized that so many of his so-called battles were staged for publicity, and that he was receiving kickbacks from some of the companies whose buildings were damaged during his fights_."

Rogue's eyes widened.

Even if she hadn't had the extra advantage of having absorbed enough of Spider-Man's personality, she would have known that he would _never _do something like that.

**Well, at least that answers the question of who she **_**is**_, Jade pointed out. **If this chick isn't that 'Shathra' bitch in some kind of disguise, I'll be **_**very **_**surprised.**

Rogue had to admit, the evidence for this woman being Shathra _was _pretty good, even if it wasn't explicit. After all, from what she'd seen during last night's fight, she at the very least had some seriously freaky powers in terms of her 'weapons' and her apparent ability to instantly realize that Jade wasn't from Earth; why shouldn't she be able to change her appearance like that somehow or other (Either through actual shape-shifting or just some kind of perception manipulation trick; one advantage of being in the X-Men was that you realized just how many powers there were out there)?

"_He'd make it look bad_," 'Sharon' said on the screen, "_and the owners would put in for far more damage than the fight really caused, in exchange for a percentage of the insurance settlement. He used to spend the money like it was water. We'd go to clubs and… well, as I said, he always was… what's the word? Kinky_."

_OK, seriously; this woman is just goin'__**way**__ too far_! Rogue thought to Jade as she stared at the screen. _Does she __**really**__ think people are goin' tah buy this?_

**Well, it's not **_**everyone's **_**had the chance to take a peek into his head like you have, Rogue**, Jade pointed out casually. **After all, it's not like he makes that many public statements about himself**…

"_He talked a lot about the people he worked with sometimes_," 'Sharon' continued, "_how they were freaks even by his standards. He used to laugh at them all the time behind their backs_."

"_What_?" Rogue yelled, staring wide-eyed at the woman, unable to believe what that thing had just said.

_OK_, she thought to herself, staring incredulously at the screen in front of her,_ Ah'd _know _that's a lie even _without _mah look in his head; he's never treated us with anything _less _than respect when we've teamed up with him_!

"_It's a very different sort of world, I can tell you that much_," Sharon continued. "_I don't know how his wife puts up with it_."

If Rogue had been shocked before, she was outright flabbergasted now.

Shathra knew that Spider-Man was _married_…?

OK, admittedly she couldn't be sure of that herself, but she'd experienced enough memories of various scenes from daily life with a red-haired woman after absorbing his memories that she felt pretty comfortable assuming that he was, if not married, than in a _very _serious relationship with somebody…

"_I guess right now the question on everyone's mind is_… _why are you coming forward now_?" the newsreader said, breaking into Rogue's train of thought and giving her a brief moment of hope that somebody _else _would realize how idiotic this whole thing was. "_And why should anyone believe your claims_?"

"_Well_," Shathra said- Rogue wasn't even going to give her the dignity of a human name any more; she didn't deserve it-, "_on the first question, I guess the most honest answer is… I just got tired of the hypocrisy. I got tired of somebody pretending to be something he's not; a decent, honorable guy. The people who think he's some kind of hero need to hear the other side. And isn't there __**always**__ another side? Isn't that what the news has taught us about __**everyone**__… politicians, clergy, teachers… __**everyone**_?"

Rogue couldn't believe that _anyone _was buying this level of crap; _yes_, people had their private sides, but not _every _person's private side made them utter berks who rejected in private everything they seemed to stand for in _public_!

"_As for why you should believe me_," Shathra continued, "_well, if anything I'm saying is a lie, let him just come out and say so. He can say what he has to say, and I'll say what I have to say about him. Who he is, the kind of person he is. But he won't. And you want to know why he won't? Because I'm telling the truth_."

"LIAR!" Rogue roared, lashing out almost instinctively at the television screen before her, punching right through the screen, resulting in a minor explosion or two that forced Rogue to rapidly withdraw her hand in case a small fire started that would hurt Jade.

**So**, Jade mused after a moment's silence, **I take it we're going down there to try and set the story straight?**

_Damn right_, Rogue replied as she stood up, allowing Jade to flow over her body once again. _Maybe Ah'm still learning what yah can do, and maybe Ah don't know Spidey that well, but Ah _do _know that Ah'm not goin' tah let her ruin the rep of one of the few guys that _everyone _in this business knows they can count on for back-up if he's in the area_!

**He didn't help **_**you**_, Jade pointed out as Rogue opened the window.

_He didn't help me because he was uneasy about _you_; it doesn't count_, Rogue retorted, as she stared out at the city before her, smiled slightly, and raised her hand. _Anyway, here Ah go again_…

With that, she launched off a new web-line and hurled herself through the air, trying constantly to remember to launch the next line rather than instinctively letting go and trying to fly.

She could afford the occasional mistake on a casual trip around the city, but if she knew Spider-Man anything like as well as she suspected she did- his previously absorbed memories _really _seemed to be coming to the fore these days-, he was _not _going to be happy about what this chick was saying, and she _really _didn't want him to get in _more _trouble before she could get there to stop him making a potentially _serious _mistake…

* * *

After the occasional wrong turn- New York really looked different this up-close; in the old days Rogue had been able to fly several feet _above _the buildings, and now she had to stay close to them if she was going to have anything for her 'web-lines' to attach to- and the occasional slip when she instinctively tried to fly, Rogue finally reached the television studio where Shathra had been broadcasting her story from. For a moment, she allowed herself to hope that she'd managed to beat her new would-be mentor- it felt a bit odd thinking of Spidey as a _mentor_, but if he was going to be teaching her how to use her new abilities it seemed like the best term for him- to the scene, but then she saw a hole in a window on one side of the building near the ground and groaned.

_Great_… she thought to herself, as she released her latest web-line and began to hurtle down towards the ground, slowing her descent with a couple of well-placed web lines. This _doesn't look encouraging…_

With that in mind, she vaulted through the hole as she fell, landing feet-first in the middle of a clearly trashed studio, looking uncertainly over at the newswoman who'd been interviewing Shathra earlier and was now looking at her in shock.

"Uh… hi?" Jade said, waving sheepishly at the woman before her; for the moment, she and Rogue were maintaining their idea of allowing Jade to do the talking to limit the possibility of somebody recognizing them by their voices. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm looking for Spider-Man; I assume he's been here?"

"Uh… yeah…" the woman said, pointing at a hole in the opposite wall. "He… he went that way… with… with her… _it_…"

"Thanks," Jade began, making for the hole- now that she was closer, she could hear the sound of a fight being waged; it must be taking place around the corner or something, and she'd missed it earlier because she was busy making sure she landed in the right place now that she had less control over her 'flight'- before she turned to look at the camera as another thought occurred to her. "By the way, if this thing's still on, I'd like to assure everyone in our line of work that Spidey is _not _like that; this sucker was lying through her teeth trying to provoke him into… well, into doing just what he's gone and done, and as much as I'd love to stick around and further reassure you on that point, I have to go before she does anything bad to him."

With that, she turned around and leapt through the hole before her, leaving the newswoman staring in confusion after her; as far as she was concerned, right now she had to deal with this Shathra sucker, and _then _she'd worry about answering questions about who she was and other little details like that.

Even as she jumped out of the hole in the wall, however, Jade quickly realized that the situation was far worse than she had expected; she only just managed to avoid being hit in the face by a web-line that Spider-Man had apparently launched for no clear reason. He didn't even seem to fully realize he was doing it; from what she could see, he was currently battering Shathra into the ground with a brutality that she couldn't ever recall him displaying in their past meetings, seemingly releasing web-lines almost at random as he squeezed his fists.

In fact, now that Jade looked at what he was doing, he almost seemed to be…

_Weaving a web_? Rogue mused to herself in confusion, as she looked up at the sight before her and her symbiotic ally. _That seems a bit… spider-ish for him. Ah mean, Ah know some people _say _he can spin a web to catch crooks like flies, but he normally just sticks them there _after _he's beaten them_…

"_Little man gone_," Shathra said, sounding very satisfied with what had happened. "_Only spider now. Shathra sent the man away. Now Shathra and little spider are just what they are, and nothing they are not. Now little spider is ripe_."

The spider wasp tore through the web with her claws with ease, and lunged at Spider-Man, only to miss as her both of her fists hit the ground as he vaulted away from her...

Or so it had seemed as with his back was turned Shathra chuckled as she fired a stinger, one that found its mark in his back.

Even as she was moving, Rogue could only helplessly watch as the monster stung him. She could already tell that that Spider-Man was losing consciousness, the spider wasp nearly had him and she was still too far away to reach him. Reach him before...

_No! We are not thinking that way! We are not leaving him to that bitch!_ she thought, her resolve hardening as she leapt to save him, wishing she could just smash Shathra's face in with her right fist.

To her great shock, she saw her right arm stretch out, her fist actually enlarging as it struck Shathra in right in her face and sent her flying back a fair distance.

_How did... Jade... what just…_

The symbiote seemed to be in a similar state of shock. _**I don't know. I suppose it could be my special little tweak to powers that all symbiotes possess, but-**_

The angry screech of their enemy shook them out of their talking.

_We'll figure this out later,_ Rogue sent to her symbiote as she picked Spider-Man up over her shoulder and shot out a webline. _Right now, we need to get out of here!_

Vaulting into the air, Jade began to swing to safety, though constantly thinking where to go as Shathra would be nipping at her heels very soon.

"... Rogue…"

Jade looked down, hearing Spider-Man's rasped voice.

"Don't worry," she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "I got you, but the freakshow isn't done yet; gotta get you somewhere safe."

"Turn... left..."

"What?" Jade asked. "Why?"

"…trust… me…" Spider-Man gasped, still clearly weak even as he indicated the relevant direction. "Feels… right…"

If it hadn't been for her experience with Longshot, who often relied on his feelings when making decision based on his luck-based powers, Rogue might have rejected such a limited explanation, but as it was, she

"Alright. Better plan than what I have at the moment," Jade conceded as she let herself be guided by Spidey's 'directions'. Eventually those directions let them back of a museum, specifically the 'storage' entrance. Landing on the ground, Rogue allowed Jade to shift them into a 'camouflage' setting- blending into the walls behind them, a part of the symbiote extending over Spider-Man-, walking slowly and carefully along the corridor for a few moments until they were away from the loading area and the people within it.

"Alright. So we are inside. Now what?" she asked. In response, Spider-Man raised a hand, pointing to an exhibit. Looking at it, Jade saw it was a giant glass container, holding a massive amount of spiders.

_Ah don't know why Ah am doing this_, Rogue thought grimly, even as she opened a small side-hatch and placed Spider-Man inside the exhibit. _But Ah sure hope you know_.

Suddenly, she watched in no small fascination as all of the spiders in the exhibit converged on Spider-Man, covering him from head to toe as it were, as if to conceal him from sight.

_Well maybe this will work, but he still needs to be guarded. _Sticking to the wall, she stayed still, allowing the symbiote to camouflage her, blending her in with her surroundings like the conventional image of a chameleon as she waited anxiously.

They might have managed to outstrip Shathra for the moment- she was guessing that something about the mass of spiders already in the exhibit were preventing Shathra from 'getting a lock' on the Spider that she was looking for-, but that was only a temporary measure, and she couldn't exactly depend on this as a solution for the whole problem. Eventually, Shathra would be back for Spider-Man, and no matter how much they refused to let her get him, they couldn't exactly protect him forever...

"-so that even though spiders, in the main, tend to nest in colonies, they remain independent in their hunting techniques."

Jade stayed right where she was, still camouflaged, watching as an elementary school group came into sight. _Oh, of all the rotten timing_, she groaned, rolling her eyes as she looked at the class, seeing a woman who was presumably the class teacher starting to speak as she looked at the exhibit.

"There are some places in South and Central America where the spider colonies are so thick that the webs hang like curtains, one on top of the other, as far as the eye can see. But unlike bees or wasps, where if you attack one the whole colony will come after you in revenge, if a spider falls, he falls alone," the teacher explained, concluding her lecture. "Now, if you'll all come this way, we'll stop at the cafeteria so that teacher can get something with sugar and caffeine-"

"There's somebody _in _there," one of the boys said, looking into the exhibit.

"Yes, of course there is," the teacher said, her tone dismissive.

Jade however could see that part of Spider-Man's head and one of his hands were starting to be exposed. **Better hope no one takes that kid seriously**, she thought.

"But-" the kid began, still looking at the exhibit even as the rest of his class walked away.

"We don't have all day, now come along," the teacher ordered.

"No, really, there is," the boy said. "How come nobody ever believes me…"

As the last of the children walked away from the exhibit, the former X-Man watched as an old man came to the exhibit where Spider-Man was hidden, silently observing him as he pulled out a cell phone to make a call.

"I've found him," the old man said to whoever was on the other end of the line. "Get the helicopter ready."

_What the hell?_ Rogue stared at the man as he put his phone back into his pocket. _Who is this guy? What does he want with Spider-Man?_

**Dunno. Why don't we ask him?** Jade responded with a bit of mischief in her tone.

Shaking her head, Rogue had Jade cancel the camouflage mode and started to walk behind the old man.

"Don't worry, P.," he said, staring at the exhibit with a slight smile. "We'll get you out of here..."

"Well that all depends," Jade said. "Who are you and what do you want with Spider-Man?"

For a moment, the man was clearly startled at the sound of her voice, but then he turned around to look at her and seemed to relax, looking her over for a moment before he smiled.

"Ezekial Sims," the older man replied, holding his hand out to her with a slight smile. "And you are?"

"Jade," Jade replied, declining the offered hand; until they knew more about this guy, Rogue would give him _nothing _to tie her to the X-Men.

"Interesting costume," Ezekial said, looking her over once again. "Is the similarity to P.'s a coincidence, or what?"

"Sufficed to say, Spidey's the reason I'm what I am today," she returned. She didn't trust Ezekial, even if he seemed to have Spider-Man's welfare in mind. "And who do you think of yourself to be Ezekial? A guardian angel?"

"Consider me… the Obi-Wan to his Luke," Ezekial replied, smiling briefly at the analogy before he turned to look back at the exhibit. "Of course, for this to work, he's going to have to come with me to Africa…"

"Africa?" Jade repeated in confusion. "Why would you want to move him half way around the world?"

"It's a long story-" Ezekial began.

"Then make it _ quick_," Jade said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him.

"For the moment, all I can say is that there's something there that can help P. fight Shathra; I don't want to say anything more in case she… well, she's got a few extras and I'm not entirely clear on her limitations," Ezekial said, looking briefly at his surroundings as though he was expecting Shathra to leap out to attack him, before he looked more directly at Rogue. "Look, I know you don't know me-"

"I don't," Jade said firmly.

"But I already helped P. deal with one problem, and I'm here to help him tackle another," Ezekial explained, looking solemnly at her. "If you want to keep an eye on P., you can come along- if your powers are anything like his, you'll probably be able to help out-, but just… follow my cue, please?"

"…fine," Jade said, after a moment's pause. "We can do this; just don't think I won't be watching you, Zeke."

"Understood," Ezekial said, nodding briefly at her before turning his attention back to Spider-Man, studying the exhibit as though trying to work out the best means of gaining access.

**Well now, saved Spider-Man and got national media exposure. I wonder if the papers will be slandering or promoting us?** Jade posed to Rogue.

_Come on, Jade, you're making a bigger deal about it than it is,_ Rogue returned. _Yes, we were on TV, but no one is going to recognize either of us and we didn't identify ourselves._

**Yeah. That just makes it more mysterious**_**,**_ her symbiote purred to her.

Mentally shrugging, Rogue decided to let the matter drop. It was just her first appearance in her new identity; there was just no way she was going to have that big of an impact on anyone watching.

* * *

"_**By the way, if this thing's still on, I'd like to assure everyone in our line of work that Spidey is not like that; this sucker was lying through her teeth trying to provoke him into… well, into doing just what he's gone and done, and as much as I'd love to stick around and further reassure you on that point, I have to go before she does anything bad to him."**_

"_Those were the parting words of a mysterious new superhuman who apparently has some sort of ties to Spider-Man. Speculation has already run rampant as to what role she plays in the webswinger's life. Sidekick, partner, his real wife?" _the newscaster announced. _"All anyone really knows is that she happens to possess a similar skill set to Spider-Man."_

Mary Jane Watson turned off the television at that point. The broadcast had struck a cord with her. _If you only knew who his real wife was,_ she thought idly.

She knew Peter had female superhero friends, Felicia being the first that came to mind, but none had ever elicited this feeling with her. Whomever the woman in green was, she had powers just like Peter.

Which meant she was more than capable of holding her own against his rogue's gallery than she, an actress, ever could.

Which also meant that there was something Peter hadn't told her, because she knew of no spider-powered-based female that Peter encountered on any kind of regular basis, and even those he had encountered didn't know that much about him, but this woman had spoken with such… _certainty_… about what she was talking about…

All Mary Jane knew that she had serious decisions to make.

**To Be Continued...**


	9. Volume 2 Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. _

**The Rogue Symboite  
****By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
****Chapter Five: Final Round**

_Peter had no real idea _what _was happening to him._

_One minute, he was struggling to reach some kind of safety inside a spider exhibit, Shathra's poison flooding through his veins and Rogue's presence now a mystery to him, and the next, he was… standing in some kind of deserted plain._

No…_ Peter amended, as he looked at what was in front of him more carefully. _Not _quite _deserted…

_Standing in front of Peter, a long white cloak wrapped around himself and a staff about as long as he was, stood a tall man with dark skin, cutting an imposing figure against the landscape behind him._

"_Let me tell you about the first Spider-Man…" a voice said off to the side. Peter didn't even turn around to look for the speaker, however; something told him that it wouldn't do him any good. "His name was Kwaku Anansi, and centuries ago he lived in the West African country now called Ghana. They said he sometimes looked like a wise old man…"_

_As the voice spoke, the scene shifted, now showing the same man swinging through the trees from something that Peter couldn't make out; they could have been vines, or they could have been some variation on his own webbing._

"_Other times," the voice continued, "they said he looked more like a spider, and traveled across Africa on strong web strings, learning the ways of distant people. Soon he had seen all there was to see, had traveled the land from shore to shore, and climbed and webbed his way to the highest point. But he yearned to see more, to learn more, to see past the horizon, to the world beyond the one he knew."_

_Even if this was only a story, as the scene changed once again to show the man- _Anansi_, Peter reminded himself, _his name is Anansi_- standing before some kind of giant spider-web, Peter couldn't help but identify with what he'd just heard about that guy. It reminded him of himself, in a way; always yearning to encounter something new in his business, no matter how dangerous it might be._

"_So," the voice continued, "he resolved to climb beyond where any had gone before, into the sky itself, why Nyame, the sky-god, lives, because Nyame was the keeper of all the stories of the world, past, present, and future."_

"_He climbed higher than any man had climbed before," the voice continued, as Anansi climbed up the web. "He climbed for longer than there are words to describe it. He climbed until he disappeared, passing beyond the edge of the mortal world."_

_Once again, the scene shifted, this time revealing Anasi at the top of the web, looking up at a massive form that Peter couldn't identify, apart from that it gave off a faint red glow._

"_When he reached the end of his journey," the voice continued, "Anansi asked the sky-god for his stories, and his wisdom of the mortal world and of the world beyond. And Nyame said-"_

"_**My stories and my wisdom come with a fearful cost, little spider**__," a voice suddenly boomed from the figure before Anansi. "__**What price are you prepared to pay**__?"_

"_There is no price too high, no price I will not pay," Anansi replied, staring with wide eyes up at the figure before him._

"_**Will you serve my cause throughout time**__?" the voice boomed._

"_I will," Anansi replied._

"_**Will you capture with your web those I ask you to capture**__?"_

"_I will."_

"_**Will you turn your face only toward me, forsaking all those you knew before**__?"_

_After a moment's hesitation, Anansi replied._

"_I cannot abandon those who turned to me in need," he said, as he looked up apologetically at the form above him. "Those I love, those I revere."_

_Even with his confusion about what was going on here, Peter had to respect that answer; it was the same one he would have given in this situation._

_No matter what he would have gained by doing so, he could _never _abandon the people he'd promised to protect. _

_After a moment's silence, Nyame spoke again._

"_**The price is sufficient**__," it replied._

_With that, before Peter's eyes, Anansi's body suddenly glowed a brilliant white light, and then vanished._

"_And with that," the original voice said, even as the scene before Peter changed to show several spiders climbing all over a web, "Anansi passed forever from the eyes of the waking world. But his knowledge was passed to his children, who spun his story, and the stories he learned form the sky-god, into webs of their own. From that day until this, the webs of spiders tell stories learned from Nyame, stories of the world we know and the world beyond, stories of what is, what was, and what is yet to be. The stories are all around us, for those who know how to read them."_

_When the scene before him altered once again, Peter was only partly surprised to see the large spider-like 'thing' he'd seen during his earlier trip to the astral plane in front of him; somehow, he'd suspected that sucker would be showing up at some point on this little 'trip' of his._

"_When Anansi," the voice continued, "who was both spider and man, became ever more the spider in his service to the sky-god, both father and mother to the spiders of the world. Where they walk, he walks, and through their eyes, he sees the world he left behind."_

_As the scene shifted again, Peter blinked in surprise as he saw a strange glowing spider lowering itself towards a hand…_

_A hand that Peter recognized _very _well…_

"_So there is little he does not see," the voice continued, as the spider lowered itself towards the left hand of Peter's own younger self. "And less still that happens by accident. For while the spider's gifts can be stolen, borrowed or impersonated, only once were they given freely. In the intersection between science and the spider. Science allowed it to happen. But science is old and the spider is new_-"

"God, yah are _so _pretentious for an old guy, yah know that?" a new voice said, forcing Peter's consciousness back to something close to full alertness.

The first voice had sounded vaguely familiar, but he _definitely _knew who that second speaker was…

"R… Rogue?" he gasped weakly, turning over in his bed to see the symbiote-clad X-Man standing up against a nearby wall in what looked like a straw hut of some kind. "Is… is that you?"

"In this line of work?" Rogue chuckled, shrugging slightly as she smiled at him. "Who else _would _it be with this accent?"

"Quite," a voice said from off to the side- the voice that had been speaking earlier, Peter realized. "And I have to say, I wasn't expecting _her _to show up; I thought you preferred working alone?"

"Who…?" Peter muttered, turning to look in the direction of the voice, only for his eyes to widen as he recognized the figure before him.

"E… Ezekial?" he said, staring at the older man with a slight grin. "You're alive."

"And so are you," Ezekial replied simply. "But just barely. You're lucky; if your… friend," he continued, indicating Rogue, "hadn't managed to get you to safety, you would have been in trouble; as it was, she lost your scent among so many other spiders."

"Ah," Peter said, sitting up as he spoke, wincing as he cradled the back of his head; he vaguely registers that his mask, gloves and shirt had been removed, but right now that wasn't a particular issue to him. "What… what did she _hit _me with?"

"Some kinda paralyzing poison, apparently," Rogue explained, jerking a thumb at Ezekial. "From what oldie here tells me, one shot was meant tah immobilize you; two woulda killed yah. Looks like yah got off lucky."

"Ah," Peter said, shaking his head as he stood shakily up. "Look, I should get going… she's still out there, she'll be coming for me-"

"Not for a while," Ezekial said simply.

"You can't be sure of that," Peter retorted, as he finally got to his feet.

"Ah… actually, he can," Rogue clarified, raising her hand. "Yah see, he kinda… moved us."

Peter blinked.

"What?" he said, as he walked over to open the door. "What do you mean, he moved…"

As he opened the door, his jaw dropped as he stared at the sight before him.

"No… freaking… way," he said, as he stared at the village before him.

He was in Africa.

He was in _Africa_?

"Welcome to Ghana," Ezekial said, smiling slightly as he and Rogue came up behind Peter. "Amazing what a corporate jet, five lobbyists, and a couple of government contacts can do these days, isn't it?"

"Yeah yeah, show-off…" Rogue groaned as she walked out, Jade shifting into her green-and-yellow outfit with the brown leather jacket as she left the hut. "Oh, by the way, Spidey, no need tah worry about them recognizing us; apparently these guys follow the history of that Kawaku Anansi guy Zeke here was telling yah about when Ah got in."

"Wait a minute; you mean that _wasn't _a dream?" Peter said, looking over in surprise at Ezekial.

"Hell, no," Ezekial replied casually as he continued walking. "I just got bored sitting around waiting for you to wake up; Rogue over here isn't exactly good company when she keeps on looking like she's interested in eating my brains."

As Peter glanced over at Rogue, she shrugged slightly.

"Hey, he was being a bit cagey about what he was doing by bringing yah here; Ah had tah get him tah talk tah me _somehow_," she said by way of explanation. "At his age, Ah didn't want tah risk an absorption in case it had long-term effects on his health, and Ah wasn't sure if Ah'd find what Ah was looking for with a brief one, so looking intimidating seemed the only choice."

"And, lemme guess, it didn't work, huh?" Peter continued, smirking over at Ezekial before his expression became serious once again. "Seriously, though, where are we going?"

"The ruins inside that tent in front of you," Ezekial clarified, as he pointed at the tent in front of him. "I brought this patch of land about nine, ten years ago, when I first began tracking down the ruins."

"Ruins?" Peter said, looking over at Rogue, who shrugged apologetically.

"Said it was only for you tah know; didn't want tah tell _me _what it was all about," she said apologetically.

"If I might continue?" Ezekial asked, glancing back at Peter and Rogue before he opened the door before him, revealing a darkened interior. "An archaeologist friend tipped me off to them after he found the first one in Central America. The same exact iconography appears in all six, and they all tell the story of Kwaku Anansi, though sometimes the names vary."

Reaching over to turn on a nearby switch, Ezekial smiled as he flicked it on.

"Take a look," he said as he looked back at the heroes in the now-illuminated cavern, revealing a massive stone spider with a large gaping hope in the abdomen that clearly led down ever further, "and tell me it doesn't take your breath away."

"Whoa…" Peter whispered briefly, his eyes wide as he studied the sight before him.

Even Rogue, who'd had far more experience in tackling cosmic-level problems and adversaries than Spider-Man had, had to admit that she was at least slightly impressed by the sight before her, so much so that she almost missed it when Ezekial began to walk up the stairs with Spider-Man close behind him, only vaguely registering that the rest of Spidey's costume was draped over a stalagmite off to one side of the small staircase.

"This is a place of power," Ezekial was explaining as he walked. "It can serve you, as the first one we found in Central America served me once, a long time ago."

Looking curiously over at the man beside him, the unmasked Spidey- it was really taking Rogue a _lot _of effort not to let Jade let his name slip through, but she wasn't going to start tapping into personal information about his life unless he gave her permission to- sighed.

"Look," he said, as he looked at Ezekial, "this is great and all, and I'm glad you save life, don't misunderstand me, but I still don't entirely buy the idea that there's some kind of connection between what happened to me and… all this."

"Let me get this straight," Ezekial replied, smiling slightly over at the younger man. "You run around with Thunder Gods, Sorerers Supreme, aliens, ghosts, demons, guys who turned into sand, immortals with cosmic powers- hell, we have a woman with a living costume from another planet standing right behind us right now- and _this _you don't believe?"

For a moment, Spider-Man simply stood silently beside the other man, and then nodded.

"OK," he said as he looked back at the older man, "point taken, but-"

"Even if you don't believe it had anything to do with the incident that gave you your abilities," Ezekial said, smiling slightly at the other man as he spoke, "there _is _a power to this place, and to this story. It's there for the taking; consider it like having an eccentric uncle who visits from time to time and gives you a quarter each time. Maybe he's nuts, but that doesn't mean you can't spend the money."

"OK…" Spider-Man said, nodding thoughtfully as he studied his surroundings, "so… this place can protect me from Shathra?"

"Not exactly." Ezekial said.

"Will it make it harder for her to find me?"

"Not exactly," Ezekial said again. "If anything, your presence here is bringing her to you faster than she could find you on her own."

Rogue blinked.

"_Excuse_ meh?" she said, looking incredulously at Ezekial. "Yah dragged us all the way tah the other side of the _planet_ just tah take us somewhere that'll make it _easier _for the whackjob tah find us? Are yah _nuts_? Ah thought yah were tryin' tah _help _me!"

"I never told you that bringing him here would help hide him, Miss… Rogue; I just said it would help," Ezekial said, as he looked back at Rogue. "The difference is that she'll arrive… worried."

"Worried?" Spider-Man said in confusion. "Why?"

"Because in this place," Ezekial said, "you- and, even given the borrowed nature of her powers, our friend over there- are not alone. In this place, you are more purely what you are; the spider to her wasp."

"In other words, the thing that nearly _killed _him last time?" Rogue countered, glaring at him.

"It won't be in the irrational manner she _wanted _him to be in their last fight, ma'am," Ezekial stated, briefly glaring at her before he looked back at Peter. "Be the spider, but be _smart _about it. Stand your ground. Feel the strength and the age of this place. You are part of something greater than yourself. Let the past of that is greater and stronger and wiser than her defeat the part of her that is like every other creature in the world."

"In what way?" Rogue countered.

"The part that's afraid of spiders," Ezekial clarified with a slight smile, before he turned around and began to walk towards a small door in a lower corner of the ruins.

"What; you're running out on us after all _this_?" Rogue groaned, glaring at him. "Where are yah even _going_?"

"To make preparations in a place that you cannot go," Ezekial replied, looking back at Rogue with a slight smile. "Good luck, you two."

With that, he hopped over the edge of the small dip that contained the door and walked through it, leaving the two heroes standing in the ruins staring bemusedly after him.

After a moment's silence, Peter walked over to the stalagmite where someone- presumably Ezekial- had left his costume, pulling the shirt and gloves on before he glanced over at Rogue.

"She's coming," he said simply.

"Good," Rogue said, as Jade 'spread' to cover her head, the traditional Southern accent vanishing as she did so. "I'm ready to kick some _ass _right now."

Peter didn't speak as he pulled on his mask, but he didn't need to; Rogue knew that he was grateful for her presence, and that was enough.

They weren't exactly close friends, but, in a situation like this, any aid was more than slightly appreciated, particularly after what Rogue had been prepared to do in the last fight against Shathra.

She'd come all the way to Africa for him; it was only fair that she be here at the end.

"_Little spider_…" a voice said from the ceiling of the tent, prompting the two heroes to look up and see Shathra staring at them from a rip in the roof. "_Time to die now… and the fake with you_."

"The only one that is going to die is you, _bitch_," Jade growled, as Rogue 'stepped back' and allowed her new 'partner' to take over. "You want us? Come and _get _us!"

As Shathra flew down towards them, Spider-Man and Jade leapt up into the air towards their foe, the three figures colliding in mid-air as Spider-Man and Jade grabbed one of Shathra's arms each and hurled her towards the ground with all their strength.

Shathra hit the ground hard but yet almost instantly came back up and lunged at Spider-Man, her claws extended. _"You will not deny me."_

"Oh yeah," Jade asked, a cocky tone in her voice. "Deny this, buglady!"

With that, she threw a punch, yet it was too far away to even strike Shathra. Or so it seemed as Spidey saw the arm elongate and the fist increase in size and mass. Shathra tried to slow down and avoid yet her own momentum was too great as the giant green and yellow fist struck her and sent her flying backwards into the opposite wall far away.

Spider-Man turned back to Jade as her right arm retracted back to its normal length and size. "Care to explain?" Yet looking at her, could see a bit of surprise written on her face.

"I'd explain if I understood it myself," Jade returned. "It reminds me of Dr. Richards own ability but that's impossible."

"Alright. We'll worry about it later," Spider-Man said. "You do know that probably wasn't going to have been enough to put her down."

"Well, I am open to suggestions, webhead," Jade responded. "Your foe, your powers, so your methods; ideas?"

"… we need to make a web," Spidey said after a moment's pause.

"We need to what?" Jade asked, confused.

"Just follow my lead," Spider-man said, taking lead as he started to use his web shooters to build webbing strands over the top of the pit.

"I think I see where you're going with this," Jade said as she started adding her own webbing yet saw Shathra starting to get her bearings again. Trying to finish up quickly, she leapt up in the air and felt herself trying to fly, yet she was realizing in mid leap that she couldn't fly now.

'_Crap!'_ she thought to herself, quickly trying to re-direct her fall while still spraying more web. When she did hit the web, at least it was stable.

"I gotta break that re-" she began, before she felt claws dig into her back and shove her to the ground.

"_You have hindered my plans for the last time... little fake,"_ Shathra decreed, ready to stab Jade once more, only for her to suddenly disappear. _"What?"_

"Can't hit what you can't see can you?" Jade's voice echoed.

Shathra moved around, trying to find her when suddenly she was greeted by a double webswing kick by both Spider-Man and Jade.

"Nice," Spider-man quipped.

"Self-preservation instincts have such a lovely way of helping you when you need it," Jade mused.

"_Little spider… little man… and the little fake… they do not understand_," Shathra said, as she stared at Spider-Man and Jade as they crouched on the vast web the two heroes had spun. "_Shathra does not tire, does not stop. Shathra can play with the spider forever. But sooner or later, the man in the spider has to sleep, and the fake cannot continue either_."

Looking at Spider-Man with an expression that could almost be interpreted as a smirk if she hadn't lacked a mouth, Shathra continued. "_Then Shathra will take the spider. Take the man. Take everyone and everything he has ever loved. We are natural enemies. I will never go away. Will the spider play… until death_?"

For a moment, Spider-Man was silent as he stared back at Shathra, leaving Jade wondering what he was going to say- could he really bring himself to go _that _far, even after what Shathra had done to him?-, but then, he finally spoke.

"Yes," he said simply.

He didn't say it very loudly, but he said it.

"_Then you are a fool,"_ Shathra said, attacking once again, both Spider-Man and Jade having to scramble. Jade was about to strike first but Shathra got a clean hit to her head, knocking her away.

"Rogue!" Spider-Man shouted, yet had to avoid Shathra's closer reach. 'Come on you. Just need to last a little longer here.'

"_Now little spider... its time for this game to end..."_ Shathra sneered.

"Shathra!"

"_Little fake think she-_"

The spider wasp then gurgled, its eyes widening in shock as it, as well as Spider-Man, saw Jade standing behind their opponent, holding one very large green/yellow sword, which she had just used to run Shathra through.

"You know the best thing about you not being human?" the symbiote said, sounding almost casual as she drove the sword deeper into her body. "We REALLY have no problem giving into our darker impulses when it comes to dealing with yah."

"_Foolish... fake..._" Shathra gasped back, clearly still ready to fight back as she twisted to try and face Jade, only for her to suddenly see two red feet strike her in the face. The force of the flying kick Spider-Man had given was enough to send the spider wasp tumbling towards the pit in the center of the chamber, where she landed right in the middle of the web that the two heroes had been almost instinctively creating during the fight.

As Spider-Man glanced over at Jade, she shrugged.

"Hey, she isn't human; normal rules don't exactly apply when facing something like _this_," she said by way of clarification. "The instant weapon thing's just a perk I like to use when I can, but I know what to use with what species to _avoid _causing unnecessary damage..."

After a moment's pause, she let out a sigh. "Oh God… don't tell me you're pissed off about that?"

"Actually…" Spider-Man began, only for him to suddenly pause, as though he was sensing something off to the side that he hadn't been aware of before. Sensing rather than seeing Ezekial appear behind them, Spider-Man and Jade stopped their attack, watching grimly as Shathra screamed in the middle of the web as the spiders crawled all over her.

"I was ready to-" Spider-Man began to say.

"I know," Ezekial replied simply.

"I didn't finish it," the web-slinger continued, Jade remaining silent off to the side. Right now, this was Spider-Man's time to gain answers; she had only come along to help.

"Yes, you did," Ezekial said. "You did what had to be done. Your blood called to her, brought her here. You built the trap, spun the web, stunned and weakened her. The rest belongs to the spider."

"Ah," Rogue said, blinking slightly as she looked at Shathra, curled up in the center of the web, sobbing slightly as spiders crawled around her.

"_No…_" she pleaded. "_No… please, mercy_-"

"And spiders don't understand mercy," Ezekial said grimly, as the web broke open and Shathra fell through the hole in the cavern below her.

"AAAAAYYYyyiiiii…" Shathra screamed as she fell, before she finally vanished into the hole, leaving the two heroes and the older man to stare grimly down after her.

"What's down there, Ezekial?" Spider-Man asked finally.

"You don't want to-" Ezekial began.

"Hey, we went tah all this trouble tah take her out; Ah think we have a right tah know if there's a chance she can come _back _from that," Rogue pointed out, folding her arms as she glared at Ezekial. "So answer the question; what's down there?"

After a moment's silence, Ezekial spoke.

"The food chain goes both ways, you know," he said as he looked back at the two heroes. "You got a problem with that?"

Following another momentary silence, Spider-Man removed his mask as he stared grimly down at the hole before them.

"No," he said simply.

He knew that Shathra wasn't human.

He knew that she wasn't really even alive.

All he could do was hope that, one day, he'd believe it.

Even as he knew that he probably would never be.

**To Be Continued...**


	10. Volume 2 Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own the X-Men or Spider-Man, they belong to Marvel. I'd like to thank my friend Marcus for his help and support on this story._

**The Rogue Symboite  
By David Knight**

**Volume Two: Partnership  
Chapter Six: New Beginnings**

The next morning, as Peter blearily forced his eyes open, Rogue sitting up and allowing Jade to cover her body, they were greeted by a polite cough from outside their door.

"Ah, you're awake," Ezekial said, grinning slightly as he looked at the two of them. "How's things?"

"Oh, the usual," Peter shrugged, flexing his shoulders as he looked at the older man while Rogue stood up and stretched. "I mean, OK, we _did _just take out some spider-wasp thing in a freaky temple somehow or other, but hey; I was bitten by a radioactive spider and my DNA mutated, so I'm hardly in a position to say what's weird."

"P., for once can you just…" Ezekial began, before sighing and shaking his head before he folded his arms and looked resolutely at the younger man. "OK, I know you don't want to hear this, but pay attention, _deal_ with it, because this is important."

"Huh?" Rogue said, looking inquiringly at him- not that Ezekial seemed to notice it; he just continued speaking as though Rogue wasn't even there.

"I know you're scientifically inclined," he continued, his arms folded as he looked at Peter, "and I know you don't want to believe that your powers are in any way totemistic in nature or origin. I get that. But the paranormal or the unexpected is in every aspect of life. Church, physics, metaphysics, crop circles, Thunder Gods, Sorcerers Supreme, out of body experiences, extra-dimensional travel, the soul, art, music, Gaia, big green - sometimes gray - guys who should've died in gamma bomb bursts but just got real strong instead."

Even as Rogue acknowledged most of his points, she failed to see the relevance of the Hulk in that equation; Doctor Banner's condition was _weird_, true, but it was still scientifically explicable…

And did this guy seriously mean to imply what she _thought _he was implying about Spidey's powers?

"You can't isolate yourself from the whole world and say none of it has anything to do with you just because that's the way you want it," Ezekial said, prompting Peter and Rogue to exchange glances and roll their eyes; she may not have spent much time with him, but Rogue knew that it was only the whole mystic aspect about _his _powers that was getting on Spider-Man's nerves rather than magic as a whole.

"Maybe the spider that bit you was intended for you alone, maybe it was sent, maybe it was operating in a larger context," Ezekial continued, now looking out of the hut's small window as he spoke. "That's a connection going in to something more, something bigger. Maybe the spider had nothing behind it at all, no meaning, no intent, no context, it just webbed its way into the wrong place at the wrong time. But that scientific event tapped into ideas and constructs and racial memories and powers that were here long before science showed up. The Ashanti have stories of a Spider-Man that go back centuries. You could look it up. You can't deny that, it's an historical fact, it-"

"_A_ historical fact," Peter interrupted, smiling slightly at Ezekial as he interrupted the older man's rant.

"What?" Ezekial said, looking at Peter in confusion.

"It's _An_ if you can't hear the H, it's _A_ if you can," Peter explained casually, prompting a brief grin from Rogue as he sat there. "You know, _an_ hour, _A_ horse; it's a common mistake made by people who want to impress other people by-"

"_Who's telling this story, me or you_?" Ezekial roared, staring in frustration at Peter. "_I'm trying to explain that one way or another, whether it was intended or you backed into it, you've tapped into something old, something important! Don't you have anything to say about that?_"

Sitting there silently for a moment, Peter glanced around at the spiders gathered in his corner of the hut, looked at one that had just landed on his shoulder, and chuckled slightly.

"Bite me," he said to the spider, a smile on his face as he did so.

Ezekial groaned, and Rogue tried not to laugh at the sight before her; creepy as it was to see him surrounded by spiders, there was something kind of amusing about it.

"P…" Ezekial sighed. "All I'm saying is that you have to pay attention to what's been happening to you lately. If you try to deny what's going on, you just make yourself vulnerable to whatever comes at you next from the spider side of you. You're tying one arm behind your back."

"Look, Ezekial," Peter replied, standing up to walk over to stand beside Ezekial in the door of the hut, Rogue standing just behind the two men, "I'm not denying that there's been a lot of weirdness in my life lately. But I'm just not there yet, I don't believe yet. I'm hardwired a certain way. I can't change that just because you say I should."

"I know…" Ezekial sighed, shaking his head slightly before he looked back at Peter. "I'm just trying to help, that's all. I've been a parallel road to yours for a long time, and I have the advantage of being able to see down the road a bit to what's coming. I'm trying to straighten out some of the curves coming your way."

"Like what?" Rogue asked, looking curiously at the older man.

"Important things tend to come in threes," Ezekial explained, as he looked back at Peter, apparently unconcerned about the fact that Rogue was the one who'd asked the original question. "Mother, father and child. Childhood, adulthood, old age."

"Life, death, and New Jersey?" Peter put in teasingly.

"_Very _funny," Ezekial said, rolling his eyes as he continued. "Anyway, my point is that you've already had two of the threats from the spider side of the 'street'; Morlun and Shathra. There's still a third one coming, though, and trust me; it's going to be a dozy. When, where and what form it'll take, I don't know. I only know that you have to be careful, and, when the time comes… open-minded."

For a moment, there was silence, and then Rogue spoke.

"Oh, is that all?" she chuckled, clapping a hand on Peter's shoulder as she did so. "Ah thought it'd be something _tough_; this guy tackles dozies on a regular basis."

Ezekial sighed as he glanced over at Peter.

"Remind me again; this woman _did _help save your life in there, right?" he asked.

"Uh… yeah," Peter said, nodding in confirmation. "Why?"

"Because I need to remind myself of the reason she's here to stop myself from punching her for being so laid-back about this," Ezekial said, as he turned to look at Rogue. "Seriously, Miss… Rogue…, you've spent the last few years of your life encountering a man who can manipulate metal with a wave of his hands on an almost regular basis- to say nothing of some of the _other _mutants you and your team tackle on a regular basis, if what they talk about in the news is even close to being accurate-, and you find _this _hard to accept?"

"Hey, Spidey here's always been the go-to guy for the street-level science-based solution or when ya're tackling a major bad guy in New York; he's just not the guy yah think of when yah think of _magic_," Rogue explained, patting the wall-crawler on the shoulder with a slightly affectionate smile. "It's like he said; it's just kinda hard to think of him like that after everything Ah know about him. Give meh a bit more evidence about this whole 'magic' thing, and maybe Ah'll think about it; till then, Ah reserve the right tah find it amusing."

Sighing, Ezekial shook his head and walked over to the nearby door.

"Look, there's more about all this that I could tell you, but now isn't the time," he said, as he turned back to look at Peter. "I've been doing some interesting things lately, P. I've been trying to do some good…"

He paused for a moment, as though uncertain how to phrase what he was about to say, before he finally spoke. "Trying to follow your example."

Rogue smiled encouragingly over at Peter at that- when you had the kind of official reputation that Spider-Man and the X-Men had to put up with thanks to the _Daily Bugle_ and the Friends of Humanity respectively, any sign of some respect from others was always welcome-, before Ezekial continued.

"But you should get back to New York," he said, as he looked back at the wall-crawler. "Your presence will be missed by now; I've had my company arrange your transportation back to the city. Your tickets are waiting inside, along with passports we… created on your behalves."

"Cool," Peter said, smiling slightly over at the older man as he and Rogue walked out of the hut, before he paused to glance back at their benefactor as Rogue got into the limo before them. "But I want you to understand that this isn't over yet. You're the only other person in the world who knows what it's like to be me- well, OK, Rogue has an idea after the time she absorbed me, but that isn't quite the same thing. There are a lot of questions I want… need… to ask you."

"You'll have the chance when the time's right," Ezekial replied. "Take care, P."

"You too, Ezekial," Peter said as he stepped into the limo, before he turned back to look at the older man. "And by the way… I'm glad you're alive. You're a good guy."

With that, he stepped inside the limo and closed the door behind him, reaching over to pick up the upper part of his costume, jeans and a shirt from a nearby bag; Jade, of course, could provide Rogue with any clothing she wanted.

For a few moments after entering the limousine, the two costumed heroes simply sat in the back seat, each one reflecting on what they were about to say, until Rogue finally broke the silence and looked over at Peter.

"So… that guy thinks your powers came from the supernatural side of the tracks?" she asked, looking at him curiously as she spoke. "How'd yah feel about that?"

Peter shrugged.

"Still trying to decide, but at the moment I'm pretty much hovering between 'weirded-out' and 'ignoring it'," he said, as he turned around to look back at the entrance to the cavern where they'd so recently fought Shathra, constantly receding into the distance. "I mean, I have enough trouble tackling my _regular _kind of bad guy; guys in animal costumes, technologically-enhanced crooks, gang bosses, all that kind of crap. Factor in magic to that whole equation on a _regular _basis?"

He shook his head. "It just gets _very _confusing; the Green Goblin's more than enough of a supernatural connection for me, as far as I'm concerned…"

"Tell meh about it; magic's _always_ beena headache for anyone who isn't Thor or Doctor Strange," Rogue groaned, before she sighed and leaned forward, raising one hand as Jade's green-and-yellow form spread over the arm. "O' course, Ah thought that it'd remain my _biggest _headache- and not a regular one at that-, and then Ah had _this _happen tah meh…"

"Yeah… uh… about that?" Peter said, looking slightly uncertainly at the arm for a moment before he turned to look at Rogue. "What you said earlier; about wanting some training in using your new powers?"

He smiled slightly at the X-Man sitting before him. "Well… I think I'm prepared to give it a shot."

Rogue blinked.

"Really?" she said, turning to look at him once again. "Ah thought yah said… y'know, with Jade an' all…"

Peter shrugged.

"Hey, you trust her; I figure you didn't get where you are today by being easy for the bad guys to trick," he said, as he leaned back slightly in the limo before looking back at Rogue with a resolute expression on his face. "Look, if we're doing this, I've just a couple of basic ground rules."

"Such as?" Rogue asked.

"1; Jade doesn't kill anyone," Peter replied, raising one hand with the index finger pointing straight up.

"Of course," Rogue responded.

"2; you do _exactly _what I say- I'm the spider-power expert and you came here to get training, so you're going to stick to what I teach you and not try and improvise," Peter continued, raising his middle finger. "I get that you've got the ability to absorb powers, but you're going from Ms. Marvel's powers and physical limitations to mine- maybe a bit above in some cases- so you _cannot _do your own thing and risk getting hurt; we had a close enough call in the cavern earlier."

"Natch," Rogue replied, sensing more than seeing the slight grin in Peter's eye; she had a pretty good idea where he was going with this.

"3…" Peter continued, raising his ring finger and chuckling slightly as he lowered his hands. "Eh, we'll work on that one once we're back in New York."

"Fine by meh," Rogue replied, allowing herself a slight smile at that last comment.

"Oh, and by the way…" Peter said, sitting forward slightly and holding out his hand. "Sorry I didn't do this earlier; I'm Peter Parker."

For a moment, Rogue just sat there, blinking in surprise at what he'd just told her, before sitting slightly forward herself and taking the offered hand.

"Anna Marie," she said in return. "Good tah meet yah, Mr. Parker; looking forward tah workin' with yah."

"Same here," Peter replied, smiling back at her.

With that, the two of them reclined back in the seats of their car and watching the world go by outside the window, Rogue allowing herself a relaxed smile at the sight.

From here on in, it was back to the basics for a while- street-level bad guys rather than world-ending whack-jobs- until she got her powers back under control and felt confident enough that she could work with the X-Men once again…

And, as far as Rogue was concerned, she couldn't be happier with that little arrangement.

She'd had _way _to much crap to deal with lately on the X-Treme X-Men team, what with Vargas and Kahn's attempts to invade Earth; a bit of time fighting some of Spider-Man's regular adversaries was just what she needed right now, as far as she was concerned.

* * *

Elsewhere, one person was looking through a computer database, looking up names for her own 'personal projects' until one name flashed quickly in front of her eyes that she couldn't believe. She went back slowly until she saw the name along with a face to go with it.

The screen read Adler, Anna Marie.

"Well well well… what have you been up to, my wayward daughter?" Mystique asked with a pursed smile at this new revelation. "Why have you taken Irene's last name as yours, even if it _is_ for a cover identity?"

Her little side job could wait, and so could the client she was duping.

Finding out whatever her daughter was up to, along with where she was and why she wasn't with the X-Men while doing it?

That was _much_ more important to her.

**End Volume Two- Partnership**

_**Author's Notes: It's taken a lot longer to get this point than I thought but at least I've managed to tie up loose threads and leave something. As always, please read and review as your comments always help with the creative process.**_

_**I would like to leave this next part up to you the readers as to where Volume Three should go. Would you like me to have it be showcasing Rogue and Peter's first efforts as partners together or would you want me to simply gloss over that in the opening chapter which is time skipped by a month so that can jump into dealing with Mystique.**_

_**Once again thank you all who have stuck with my story all this time. Until the next time true believers.**_


End file.
